Annis’s tone was full of a sort of dismayed astonishment. Elsie started up in such haste and sprang out of bed so nimbly that her father laughed to see her.
“No need of such haste, darling,” he said, “nor for you to feel troubled, Annis; we older people have only just breakfasted. Aunt Chloe must make haste with your toilet, Elsie, and in the mean while breakfast shall be laid for you and Annis in your boudoir; and when you have satisfied your appetite you may come to me in the study. I will leave you until then.”
It was a very delicious little breakfast the children found awaiting them in the pretty boudoir, and they brought to it appetites keen enough to make it most enjoyable.
Then the one went to her father, the other to her sister to spend the next half hour.
By that time the large, roomy family carriage was at the door, and ladies, gentlemen and children took a delightful drive; for the sun shone brightly and the air was just cold enough to be pleasant and bracing to mind and body.
It was now the last of November, and from this time until the beginning of the Christmas holidays ladies and children were much occupied with preparations for them; principally shopping and making up pretty things as Christmas gifts to relatives and friends.
Elsie and Annis were somewhat disposed to neglect lessons for this more fascinating employment, but Mr. Dinsmore would by no means permit it; he was firm in his determination that every task should be thoroughly well learned each day before the fancy work might be touched, or a shopping expedition undertaken. Nor would he allow any curtailment of the usual daily out-door exercise.
They occasionally ventured a slight complaint that it was very difficult to fix their thoughts on lessons when so greatly interested in other things; but he was inexorable.
“It can and must be done,” he would say, gently but firmly, addressing his own daughter more particularly; “that a thing which ought to be done is difficult, is no reason for excusing ourselves from making the necessary effort to do it. As I have told you before, my child, the determined effort to concentrate your thoughts is excellent mental discipline for you.”
He was not very busy at this time, and spent some hours each day—generally those in which the children were conning their tasks—in reading to his wife and Mildred, while they plied the needle; all three in this way renewing their acquaintance most agreeably with Shakspeare, Wordsworth, Scott, Dickens, and other poets and novelists.