Yes, but how could she help worrying? If it had been only running! But these children never seemed content to stay on their feet for ten minutes together. Now they were turning somersaults round and round the grass-plot, till her head grew dizzy, and Cousin Sophronia screamed from the window that they would all be dead of apoplexy in less than ten minutes. Now they were hanging by their heels from the lower branches of the horse-chestnut tree, daring each other to turn a somersault in the air and so descend. Now Merton was teasing Chiquito, and getting his finger bitten, and howling, while Basil jeered at him, and wanted to know whether a sixty-year-old bird was likely to stand "sauce" from a ten-year-old monkey. Now Susan D. had caught her frock on a bramble, and torn a long, jagged rent across the front breadth, that filled Margaret with despair. Poor Susan D.! By afternoon, Miss Sophronia had taken her into custody, and marched her off to her own room, to stay there till bedtime.
"The child was rebellious, my dear Margaret; positively disrespectful. A little discipline, my love, is what that child needs. It is my duty to give it to her, and I shall do my duty cheerfully. At your age, it is not to be expected that you should know anything about children. Leave all to me, and you will be surprised at the result. A firm rein for a few weeks,—I shall manage her, never fear!"
Margaret was humble-minded, and fully conscious of her total lack of experience; still, she could not feel that a system of repression was the one most likely to succeed with Susan D.
"If we could win the child's affection," she began, timidly. Miss Sophronia pounced upon her.
"My love, you naturally think so! Believe me, I know what I am talking about. I have practically brought up William's children; the result is astonishing, everybody says so." (Everybody did, but their astonishment was hardly what the good lady fancied it.) "Trust,—dearest Margaret, simply confide absolutely in me! So important, I always say, for the young to have entire confidence in their elders."
Margaret was thankful when dinner was over, and her cousin gone to take her afternoon nap. Basil was in a lowering mood, the result of his sister's imprisonment. He would do nothing but rage against Cousin Sophronia, so Margaret was finally obliged to send him away, and sit down with a sigh to her work, alone.
It was very pleasant and peaceful on the verandah. The garden was hot and sunny at this hour, but here the shade lay cool and grateful, and Margaret felt the silence like balm on her fretted spirit. It was all wrong that she should be so fretted; she argued with herself, scolded, tried to bring herself to a better frame of mind; but nature was too strong for her, and the best she could do was to resolve that she would try, and keep on trying, her very best; and that Uncle John should not know how worried she was. That, surely, she could manage: to keep a smiling face when he was at home, and to made light of all these hourly pin-pricks that seemed to her sensitive nature like sword-thrusts.
So quiet! Only the sound of the soft wind in the great chestnut-trees, and the clear notes of a bird in the upper branches. A rose-breasted grosbeak! Her uncle had been teaching her something about birds, and she knew this beautiful creature, and loved to watch him as he hovered about the nest where his good wife sat. His song was almost like the oriole's, Margaret thought. She laid down her embroidery, and watched the flashes of crimson appear and disappear. What a wonderful, beautiful thing! How good to live in the green country, where lovely sights and sounds were one's own, all day long. Why should one let oneself be distressed, even if things did not go just to one's mind?
A soft cloud seemed to be stealing over her spirit; it was not sleep, but just a waking dream, of peace and beauty, and the love of all lovely things in the green and blossoming world, where life floated by to the music of birds,—
"I beg your pardon, Miss Margaret; were you asleep, miss?"