[CHAPTER XXI.]
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS.
THE letters from Rose Cottage had been highly satisfactory until the last. In that, Marion wrote that Hannah was slowly recovering from an attack of fever which had much prostrated her strength.
"Paul," she said, "I brought home with me; and he has been my special care ever since. Bridget has proved herself a wonderful nurse; and at the same time has superintended the dairy work, so that all has gone on as orderly as usual. We hope Hannah will be entirely recovered in a few weeks."
"In the mean tithe papa and mamma have become so much attached to my boy, as I proudly call him, that it will be difficult to separate them when it is time for him to go back to Rose Cottage. Indeed, if I did not take him in for a call every day, neither Hannah nor Bridget could be pacified. He grows more beautiful every hour; and what you will care for more than all the rest, he grows so conscientious. Papa has a large book of engravings of which he is very choice. Once or twice I have shown them to Paul, explaining the scenes they were intended to represent; but the child had been told not to take the volume from the shelf as it is too large for him to handle without injury."
"I went out on an errand for mamma a few days ago, not taking my usual companion on account of the rain. Mamma was busy in her chamber, and papa out on parish duty. I gave Paul a game of dissected pictures to keep him employed; and left him in the study. When I returned, I noticed he looked uneasy, his face flushed, and his eye avoiding mine. I glanced around the room fearing he had been trying to write, as he loves to do; and had spilled the ink; but I saw no marks of disorder, and concluded not to urge him to tell me what ailed him."
"I took a book into the bow window, and he sat near me sighing repeatedly. At last his lip began to quiver, and with an exclamation:"
"'I want my mamma to come home quick,' the poor little fellow burst into tears."
"I caught him in my arms where he sobbed a long time before he could explain."
"'I've been naughty, aunt Marion. I took that nice book of pictures down from the shelf.'"