She slept till near tea-time, and when tea was over, her cousins and Mrs. Mortlake prepared for a walk, and invited Josephine to join them. This she did; but in less than ten minutes she complained so much of fatigue, that Rosalind turned back and accompanied her home, and she reclined on the settee in the porch till the lamps were lighted in the front-parlour. The girls then showed Josephine a portable diorama, containing twelve beautiful coloured views of castles, abbeys, temples, and mountain scenery. Each of these exquisite little landscapes was fixed, in turn, as the back scene of a sort of miniature stage. The skies and lights of these views were all transparent, and there were other skies which turned on rollers, and represented sunrise, moonlight, sunshine, and thunder-clouds. These second skies being placed behind those of the picture, were slowly unrolled by turning a small handle, and produced the most varied and beautiful effects on the scenery, which could thus at pleasure be illuminated gradually with sunshine or moonbeams, or darkened with the clouds of a gathering storm. But Josephine saw this charming exhibition without a single comment; being evidently much inclined to yawn as she looked at it. And getting again very sleepy, she soon retired to her bed.
Next morning, Mrs. Mortlake invited her to bring her sewing into the school-room, and sit there while her cousins were at their lessons. But Josephine replied that she hated sewing, and never did any. However, she took her seat in the school-room, and a kitten soon after came purring round her; so she put it on her lap, and stroked and patted it till the lessons were over, and the girls went up stairs to amuse themselves till dinner-time.
Adelaide tried to induce Josephine to look at some of the beautiful prints in the port-folio; but she found it necessary to explain them all, as if she was showing them to a child of three years old.
Rosalind proposed that they should all go on the roof of the house (it being flat on the top and guarded with a railing) to look at the beauty and wide extent of the prospect; and taking their parasols to screen their heads from the sun, they went up through a very convenient trap-door at the head of an easy little staircase. The view from the roof of Mr. Edington's house was certainly very fine, comprising the bay with its islands and fortresses; its boats and vessels of every description; the distant lighthouse at Sandy Hook, and the blue ocean rolling beyond it: and at the other end of the scene, behind a forest of masts, rose the city of New York with its numerous spires glittering in the sunlight.
Fine as the prospect was, Josephine showed no symptom of admiration; but as they came down through the garret-passage, she spied an old rocking-chair standing in a corner among some lumber. (Parlour rocking-chairs were not yet in general use.) She turned her head, and looked at it with longing eyes. "Ah!" said she, "that is the very thing I have been suffering for ever since I left home. Do let me beg to have it in my room." The chair, accordingly, was carried into the apartment of Josephine, who immediately seated herself, and began to rock with great satisfaction; at which most interesting amusement she continued till near dinner-time. The rocking-chair was next day taken into the school-room, and with that and the kitten, Josephine appeared to get through the morning rather contentedly.
The afternoon was again devoted to a long nap: and in the evening Josephine reclined on the front-parlour sofa, and entertained herself by running her finger a hundred times over the brass nails.
Several days passed on in a similar manner. One morning when they were all in the play-room, Josephine said to her cousins, "What a very hard life you are obliged to endure. Neither of you have a moment of rest, from the time you leave your beds in the morning, till you return to them at night. First, there is your rising with the sun, and going to work in your little gardens. I am sure you might make your father's gardener do all that business."
Adelaide. But we take great pleasure in it; and when we see our flowers growing and blooming, the interest they excite in us is much increased by knowing that we have raised them from the seed, or planted the roots ourselves; and that we have assisted their growth by watering, weeding, tying them, and clearing them from insects. And is it not pleasant to find that the fruit-stones, we planted a few years since in our little orchard, have produced trees that are now loaded with fruit? The red cherries, we had last evening after tea, were from one of my trees; and the large black cherries were from Rosalind's. And in August, we shall have our own plums and peaches.
Josephine. I am sure it is much less trouble to buy these things, than to cultivate them; and as to the amusement, I can see none. Then there are those awful lessons that are always to come on after breakfast. The writing, and cyphering, and grammar, and geography, and history, one day: and the French, and music, and drawing, the next: and-the reading and sewing every afternoon; and the walk every evening. Even your play-time (as you call it) is a time of perpetual fatigue: your plays all seem to require so much skill and ingenuity. And then on Saturday morning, to think that you are obliged to go into the housekeeper's room and learn to make cakes, and pastry, and sweetmeats, and all such things. I am sure if I was never to eat cakes till I assisted in making them, I should go without all my life. It seems to me that your whole existence is a course of uninterrupted toil.
Rosalind. There is much truth in what you say, my dear Josephine. But I own it never struck me before.