“Oh, Miss Channing, now you are laughing at me! As if any one, in all England, could be so great a lady as the Queen.”
“Very good. When she was a little girl, a child of her own age, the daughter of one of the nobility, was brought to Kensington Palace to spend the day with her. In talking together, the Princess Victoria mentioned something she had seen when out of doors that morning at seven o’clock. ‘At seven o’clock!’ exclaimed the young visitor; ‘how early that is to be abroad! I never get out of bed until eight. Is there any use in rising so early?’ The Duchess of Kent, who was present, took up the answer: ‘My daughter may be called to fill the throne of England when she shall be grown up; therefore, it is especially necessary that she should learn the full value of time.’ You see, Caroline, the princess was not allowed to waste her mornings in bed, although she was destined to be the first lady in the land. We may be thankful to her admirable mother for making her in that, as in many other things, a pattern to us.”
“Is it a true anecdote, Miss Channing?”
“It was related to my mother, many years ago, by a lady who was, at that time, very much at Kensington Palace. I think there is little doubt of its truth. One fact we all know, Caroline: the Queen retains her early habits, and implants them in her children. What do you suppose would be her Majesty’s surprise, were one of her daughters—say, the Princess Helena, or the Princess Louise—to decline to rise early for their morning studies with their governess, Miss Hildyard, on the plea that it was not ‘lady-like’?”
Caroline’s objection appeared to be melting away under her. “But it is a dreadful plague,” she grumbled, “to be obliged to get up from one’s nice warm bed, for the sake of some horrid old lessons!”
“You spoke of ‘the poor’—those who ‘have their living to earn’—as the only class who need rise early,” resumed Constance. “Put that notion away from you at once and for ever, Caroline; there cannot be a more false one. The higher we go in the scale of life, the more onerous become our duties in this world, and the greater is our responsibility to God. He to whom five talents were intrusted, did not make them other five by wasting his days in idleness. Oh, Caroline!—Fanny, come closer and listen to me—your time and opportunities for good must be used—not abused or wasted.”
“I will try and get up,” said Caroline, repentantly. “I wish mamma had trained me to it when I was a child, as the Duchess of Kent trained the princess! I might have learned to like it by this time.”
“Long before this,” said Constance. “Do you remember the good old saying, ‘Do what you ought, that you may do what you like’? Habit is second nature. Were I told that I might lie in bed every morning until nine or ten o’clock, as a great favour, I should consider it a great punishment.”
“But I have not been trained to get up, Miss Channing; and it is nothing short of punishment to me to do so.”
“The punishment of self-denial we all have to bear, Caroline. But I can tell you what will take away half its sting.”