“Bessie,” said Mr. Guildford to his sister the evening after he had been over at Greybridge to see Dr. Farmer, “you are always wanting me to have a change. I am thinking of arranging to have one every week.”
“What do you mean, Edmond?” said Mrs. Crichton. “A change that came every week wouldn’t be a change. You might as well say Sunday was a change.”
“So it is—to me at least. That is to say, when I can go to church. I like going to church very much. One can think so comfortably, with such perfect security from interruption; that’s a very pleasant change to me,” said Mr. Guildford.
“Is that all you go to church for?” said Bessie with mild reproach. “And you used to be such a good little boy! I remember the first time you went to church, how still you sat, and how everybody praised you when we came out.”
“Well, I don’t jump about now, do I?” said Mr. Guildford. “I don’t see why I should never be praised now as well as when I was a little boy. Why don’t you praise me, Bessie? It’s very nice to be praised; and it’s far harder to be good when one’s big than when one’s little. You should remember that, Bessie, and encourage me sometimes. You know I do everything you tell me, don’t I?”
But Mrs. Crichton knitted on perseveringly, counting the stitches in a low voice, and taking no notice of her brother’s remarks. She was not fond of being made fun of, and when Edmond talked in this half-lazy, half-bantering way, she waxed suspicious.
“One, two, three, four, take two together,” she murmured. “These socks are for you, Edmond,” she observed, in a “coals of-fire-on-your-head” tone.
“Are they? It’s very good of you to make them for me, but I hope they are not of that prickly wool, Bessie. Some you knitted for me, made me feel as if little needles were running into my feet. Did you knit my socks for me when I was a little boy? If you did, I expect they were of soft wool then; weren’t they?”
Mrs. Crichton tried to go on knitting gravely, but her brother, standing behind her, managed to give every now and then judicious little jogs to her elbows, which much interfered with the progress of the socks. At first, Mrs. Crichton thought the jogs were accidental, and bore them philosophically enough, with a “Take care, Edmond,” or, “Please don’t shake my chair.” But a more energetic jog than usual exhausted her patience.
“Edmond, you are really too bad,” she exclaimed, “I believe you are shaking me on purpose. Just look now, I have dropped two stitches! What is the matter with you, you great, idle boy? Who would think you were a learned man, a solemn, wise doctor?”