BEFORE I go on to relate what happened on that pleasant day, I must tell you some things about baby Lily and her home.
She did not always live in the city, though her father was Rector of a large and wealthy parish there. In the summer they went a long way into the country, down near the sea-side, where the children could fill their lungs with nice, fresh air, and where the father and mother could gain new strength for the performance of their arduous duties. Some time I may tell you of the delights of their country home; but now I will say that the parsonage or rectory was a large, commodious mansion, joined to the rear end of the church.
The channel, the pulpit, and the reading desk were in a deep, wide recess. There were quaint, old-fashioned rooms in the house, formed out of the space at the side of the chancel. One of these rooms on the lower floor, the pastor occupied for his study. It had a high Gothic window, with small, diamond panes of glass; and the walls were wholly lined with cases containing books. There were large, elegantly bound volumes on the lower shelves; then on the others, the books were smaller and smaller to the very top shelf, which could only be reached by a pair of high steps.
There was one large bust, too, which the children often gazed at, because it looked so peaceful and smiling. This was a bust of their great grandfather, an eminent divine, and teacher of theology.
But I cannot stop to tell you all the wonders of the study, nor to describe the Rector, who sat long hours at the table in the centre of the room, poring over the old-fashioned volumes, and writing the sermons which he prayed God might help to fit his beloved people for heaven. I must go on to tell you about the chamber over the study, which was called the church-room. This was lighted by a continuation of the same window with its funny little panes of glass, through which the sunlight streamed in so gloriously.
The room in the third story over this was devoted to the children, for their toys; and well it was filled with all sorts, from tin horses harnessed in pedlers' carts, to the family of Noah just walking out of the ark.
Besides the pastor and his wife, there belonged to the family four children,—Helen, Russell, Lily, and baby Herbert.
There had been another loved one, the first-born, the dearest treasure known on earth.
"Lovely as an angel's dream,
Her chestnut locks with sunlight all agleam,
Her holy eyes with heaven in their beam."
* * * * * *
"But when the elder Shepherd of the fold
Came, covered with the storm, and pale and cold,
And begged for one of the sweet lambs to hold,
The parents knelt to pray! Is it thy will?
Ah, how they wept at the last word 'farewell!'"
As I told you in the first chapter, the birthday dawned clear and bright. The children had scarcely finished their breakfast when there was a ring at the door; and who should it be, but Miss Norton; with a box for baby Lily.