Nan hurried back to the grass-stains, only looking once over her shoulder to find her mother and Hugh “peerin’” stealthily from behind the porch, to catch, if possible, a few more crumbs from the children’s table; but, dutiful daughter as she was, she didn’t look again, but wider and wider stretched her mouth, brighter shone its ivory gems, and louder sounded out her clear, rich notes, while she sang—
“Carry me back to old Virginny,
To old Virginny’s shore,”
as she renewed her zeal in the cause of grass-stain cleaning, which was just now bringing wrinkles to Charlotte’s anxious brow, which was ever like a page in a school-mistress’s report-book. There were wrinkles small, which meant grass-stains, bumps, rents, and childish disputes; there were wrinkles many, which told of mischief wrought; but these were soon dispelled. There were deeper ones which told of graver faults,—disobedience or falsehood, and others like them, which days of anxious watching and fears of future ills had left, which could be effaced only by His hand who can truly—
“Smooth the troubled brow,
And drive away our fears.”
Little Bear, in the meantime, was finding pleasant pastime in making larkspur wreaths and dandelion curls for his little sister’s “store,” whilst he kept an eye on Artie’s successful game, only wishing—
“It might have been,
His favorite Daisy’s lot to win,”