'Suppose Francie and you both go, and take your own dinners as well? That will be a kind of picnic on a small scale, almost as pleasant, perhaps, as the grand one of to-morrow. You can come away afterwards, and leave the boys to their sport.'
Jessie looked rather cloudy again for a minute; it was so like being offered a little slice when she had wanted the whole loaf!
Her father was standing quite near her now, and he smoothed down her hair softly with his hand, as he said, 'Jessie, have you ever thought what a sweet and happy thing love is when it has overcome jealousy? It is not worth very much till then.'
For one moment there was a sharp struggle within her, and then she pressed her cheek against his arm, with a loving, grateful gesture. He had no fear that his little maiden would give way to jealousy any longer. Now that he had given the sore feeling a name, he knew that she would be as anxious to drive it away as he was.
That dinner in the meadows was very pleasant—'Quite enchanting,' Frances declared. 'Awfully jolly,' said Cecil, who was not so choice in his vocabulary. Percy looked on it as rather a childish entertainment, and said more than once that he wished 'they' hadn't forgotten that he always took pepper with everything; but he never blamed either of his sisters, only this mysterious 'they,' and made an excellent dinner, spite of the absence of the pepper-box. He was very kind to Jessie too,—so kind that she quite forgave Cecil from henceforth for thinking Percy's notice a very grand sort of thing; it seemed as if he almost included her in the new respect he had begun to have for his younger brother. And then, Cecil! Cecil was so entirely delightful on this occasion, that she wondered how, even for a moment, she could have thought him anything but the most perfect of all possible brothers. From the noble way in which he dispensed the tart, only leaving himself a very small piece, though she knew he liked it better than anything, down to the good-nature with which he gave his last bit of cheese to the lame old setter, that had limped down to see after them, everything in his behaviour was just according to her own heart, and totally unlike the selfish greediness of what she called 'common schoolboys.' And then, when, instead of going back to his fishing directly after dinner, he asked her to walk with him as far as the bridge and watch the trout leap, she was the very happiest and proudest of little sisters. If it had not been for what her father had said, she would have lingered near him the whole afternoon; but as it was, she came away quite contentedly after she had watched his angling for a minute or two, and really felt how nice it was that Percy and he should have become such allies,—how much pleasanter for him than having only her for a companion. Percy's vacation would be over before his, and then her time would come perhaps; anyhow, she was much too sure of Cecil's love to have any excuse for jealousy in seeing him taken up with others. He had opened his heart to her when he was in trouble, she should never forget that. Oh! how dear this had made him to her, both 'for then and for always!'
No after-trial worth recording shadowed Cecil's boyhood; and now he is a man—just such a man as Jessie longed to see him. He very seldom thinks of the incidents here related, but yet the lesson he learnt in that memorable week is still bearing fruit in his life; and when any trial comes to him, he does not say it is 'very hard,' but takes it as a new proof of the fatherly love that watches over him, and, in dark seasons as well as bright ones, is ready to sing with the psalmist, 'Every day will I give thanks unto Thee, and praise Thy name for ever and ever.'
Transcriber's Notes:
The original text had no table of contents. One was added as an aid to the reader.