“I must have been thinking of the pony you are to ride; but you should have told me.”
“I set it right with Tommy afterwards; but I did not want to make Kitty laugh, so I let it pass at the time.”
“Then, papa,” said Mary, “I am afraid I can’t answer for not having had any silly thoughts about this at church.”
“It is always wisest not to answer for any such thing, Mary; for the wisest and best of us are troubled with vain thoughts at the most solemn times, and in the most sacred employments.”
“The very wisest and best, papa?” said Mary, looking at her mother’s picture.
“Your mother used to say so,” said Mr. Byerley, as his eyes followed Mary’s and rested on the picture. “If ever there was an example of entire self-command, it was she; and if ever there was one who fully understood and felt the blessings of this day, it was she: and yet she used to make the same complaint that we have made.”
“I remember,” said Mary, in a low voice, “that I thought she looked differently on a Sunday from every other day; and I felt differently. The feeling comes over me now, of those bright summer mornings when I used to be taken up earlier than on weekdays; and the washing, and the clean frock and pinafore, and mamma making breakfast, in her neat white gown. And then, after breakfast, she used to take me into the garden, and let me gather a flower for her. I don’t know what makes me remember crocuses so particularly; but I never see a gay crocus bed without thinking of one of those bright old Sunday mornings.”
“She loved to make you particularly happy on Sundays, because she thought the feeling of pleasure might last through life, as it did with her. Her parents made her love the Sabbath, and the power of the feeling was once shown very remarkably——.”
He stopped, but the girls looked at him so earnestly that he soon went on.
“You know, though you cannot remember, that you once had a little brother: nurse often tells you about him, I know, and how he died. Nothing could be more sudden than the accident, and, of course, neither your mother nor any body else could be at all prepared for such a shock; for a heartier child could not be. It happened on a Friday afternoon, and all that night and the next day the struggle which your mother underwent was fearful. Early on the Sunday morning, she slept for the first time since the accident, and I would not have her wakened when it was broad day. She started up, at last, with the confused feeling of something very dreadful having happened; but when the tide of grief was just flowing in upon her again, the church-bells rang out. She was calm instantly; and that day did more towards restoring the tone of her mind than any previous exertion, though she had striven hard for composure. She walked in the garden with me, and sat by this very window, sometimes reading, and sometimes listening to the chimes; but looking so like herself that I was no longer anxious about her.”