Nobody ventured to say anything to the contrary; but Bert, who was sitting by his mother, turned an anxious face up to hers, and whispered: "Grandpapa won't hurt Mr. Davis, will he? He was so good to me, and he asked God to save us; and He did."
"It will be all right, dear," his mother whispered back. "Don't worry yourself about it." And Bert, reassured, said nothing more.
Bedtime for him soon came, and then, to his great delight, he found that instead of being banished to a room somewhere away upstairs, he was to be put in a curious bed, that filled a corner of the parlour in which the family sat. Bert had never seen anything like that bed before. It looked just like a closet, but when you opened the closet door, behold, there was a bed, and a very comfortable one, too. Just behind the parlour, with a door between, was the best bedroom, which his mother would have, and there Bert undressed, returning in his night-gown to say goodnight to all before tumbling into bed.
With the closet door wide open, he could see everything that went on in the room; and it was so delightful to lie there watching the family reading or talking, until at last, sleep came to claim him.
"Now, if you're a good boy, and don't attempt to talk after your head's on the pillow, I'll leave the door open, so you can see us all," said Aunt Sarah, as she tucked Bert snugly in; and he had sense enough to be a good boy, so that not a sound came from him ere his brown eyes closed for the night.
Many a night after that did he lie there luxuriously, watching his grandfather reading the newspaper, with a candle placed between his face and the paper, in such close proximity to both, that Bert's constant wonder was that one or the other of them never got burned; his grandmother, whose eyes no longer permitted her to read at night, knitting busily in her arm-chair, or nodding over her needles; Aunt Sarah, reading in the book that always lay at hand for leisure moments; Aunt Martha, stitching away, perhaps on some of his own torn garments; his mother writing home to Mr. Lloyd, or to Mary; while from the kitchen, outside, came the subdued sound of the servants' voices, as they chattered over their tasks. Bert thought it a lovely way to go to sleep, and often afterward, when at home, going up alone to bed in his own room, wished that he was back at grandfather's again.
Bert slept late the next morning, for he was a very tired boy when he went to bed; and for this once he was indulged. But as he entered the dining-room, his grandfather, who had finished breakfast a full hour before, looking at him with that stern expression which was habitual to him, said:
"City boys must keep country hours when they come to the country. Early to bed, early to rise, is the rule of this house, my boy."
Poor Bert was rather disconcerted by this reception, but managed to say: