CHANGES IN PROSPECT
I could not tell you one-half of the pleasant things that happened in the course of the next month to Rob and Nelly. They had such good times that they hardly ever thought of their disappointment about the mine. And even Mr. and Mrs. March thought less and less about it every day, they were so much interested in talking with Mr. and Mrs. Cook. Mr. March and Mr. Cook became good friends very soon. Mr. Cook would often work all day long in the fields with Mr. March. He said it made him feel as if he were a boy again, on his father's farm. The days that Rob and Nelly went to Rosita were very long days to Arthur. He was so lonely that Mrs. Cook proposed to her husband one day that they should let Thomas, the driver, take the children up town in the carriage, and bring them right back again.
"They need not be gone more than two hours in all," she said. "It is that tiresome walk that takes so long."
But Mr. Cook was too wise to do this.
"That would not be any true kindness to the children," he said. "It is much better that they should keep on with the regular routine of their life, just as they did before. If they were to have the carriage to take them up to town for a month, it would only make the walk seem very long and hard to them after we are gone. We will give them all the pleasure we can, without altering their way of living."
"The mere fact of our being here alters their whole life," said Mrs. Cook. "They have now constant companionship, and a variety of amusements and interests, in Arthur's toys and books, which are all new to them. Before we came, they had solitude, absolutely no amusements, and no occupation except hard work. Nelly told me the other day that she had read every book in their house, twice over."
"There are not very many books," said Mr. Cook: "I don't know how March comes to have so few."
"Oh, they had to sell ever so many last summer: Mrs. March told me so," replied Mrs. Cook.
"By Jove! did they?" exclaimed Mr. Cook. "That was too bad. I wonder if March would take it amiss if I sent him out a box of books this autumn."
"I don't know," Mrs. Cook said thoughtfully. "They haven't a particle of false pride, about their work, or selling things, or any thing of that kind; but I doubt their liking presents. They are very independent."