“I didn’t either,” said Harry. “But ’most everybody’s bad to us since papa and mamma went away.”
Here Jane, who had gone back to her kitchen, poked in her head at the communicating door. “You’d better stop talkin’ and get you dinners eat up ’fore the folks gits home from chu’ch; ’cause ef ye don’t maybe you’ll have to stop hungry.”
The thought of that alarming possibility at once silenced every complaint, and hardly another word was spoken till their appetites were fully satisfied. A hasty washing of hands and faces followed and was scarcely over when the Cootes returned, and the little folks were summoned to the study and required to recite their verses of Scripture to the frowning, loud-voiced, impatient dominie, while the dinner for him and his wife was being set upon the table. It seemed a dreadful ordeal to the trembling little ones, and a great relief when it was over and they were ordered up to their own room for the remainder of the day.
CHAPTER IX.
Considering her extreme youthfulness, it was a hard and toilsome life that had now begun for Ethel. Day and night she had charge of her little brother and sisters; she must wash and dress them—or teach them to do those things for themselves, and see in every way to their comfort and amusement; also teach Nannette and Harry their little lessons. Besides she must learn her own, keep their room in order, and spend an hour or two every day in the use of her needle, under the instruction of Mrs. Coote, who was very strict and exacting, though she occasionally bestowed a few words of warm praise when she considered it to have been well earned.
On such occasions Ethel’s cheek would flush and her eyes brighten as she listened, a feeling akin to love for the usually cold-mannered woman tugging at her heart strings; but ere she could summon up courage for the expression of her pleasure and budding affection, the cold, distant manner had returned, and chilled and disappointed she could say no more than, “Yes, ma’am; thank you for praising my work. I mean to try always to do it as well as ever I can.”
Meantime the intimacy between the Eldons and little Mary Keith grew and increased. From the first they seemed to take great pleasure in each other’s society, and would play together in unbroken harmony by the hour; generally in Mr. Keith’s grounds as Mrs. Coote was entirely willing to have them there, Mary’s mother and grandmother no less so; and when Ethel’s tasks were finished she was allowed to join the others. Her gentle, quiet, ladylike manner made her a great favorite with the ladies and she was sometimes allowed to do her stint of needlework there, sitting quietly with them while the younger children romped and played about the garden or on the porches.
There were some pictures on the wall of the pretty sitting room where the ladies spent most of their time, one of which particularly attracted Ethel’s attention; it was a woodland scene—a little valley, a small creek with a dam, running through, it, near by a horse tethered to a sapling, and at a little distance, partly hidden by a thicket, a noble looking man in Continental uniform, on his knees in prayer.
“Mrs. Weston, who is that gentleman praying there in the woods?” Ethel at length ventured to ask.
“That is a picture of our Washington at Valley Forge,” answered the lady, bestowing a look of loving admiration upon the kneeling figure.