A HAPPY DAY
And it was a fine day! Things after all do not always go wrong in this world, though some people are fond of talking as if they did.
That day, that happy birthday, stands out in my mind so clearly that I think I must write a good deal about it, even though to most children there would not seem anything very remarkable to tell. But to me it was like a peep into fairyland. To begin with, it was the very first time in my life that I had ever paid a visit of any kind except once or twice when I had had tea in rather a dull fashion at the vicarage, where there were no children and no one who understood much about them. Miss Linden, the vicar's sister, a very old-maid sort of lady, though she meant to be kind, had my tea put out in a corner of the room by myself, while she and grandmamma had theirs in a regular drawing-room way. They had muffins, I remember, and Miss Linden thought muffins not good for little girls, and my bread-and-butter was cut thicker than I ever had it at the cottage, and the slice of currant-bread was not nearly as good as Kezia's home-made cake—even the plainest kind.
No, my remembrances of going out to tea at the vicarage were not very enlivening.
How different the visit to Moor Court was!
It began—the pleasure of it at least to me—the first thing when I awoke that morning, and saw without getting out of bed—for my room was so little that I could not help seeing straight out of the window, and I never had the blinds drawn down—that it was a perfectly lovely morning. It was the sort of morning that gives almost certain promise of a beautiful day.
In our country, because of the hills, you see, it isn't always easy to tell beforehand what the weather is going to be, unless you really study it. But even while I was quite a child I had learnt to know the signs of it very well. I knew about the lights and shadows coming over the hills, the gray look at a certain side, the way the sun set, and lots of things of that kind which told me a good deal that a stranger would never have thought of. I knew there were some kinds of bright mornings which were really less hopeful than the dull and gloomy ones, but there was nothing of that sort to-day, so I curled myself round in bed again with a delightful feeling that there was nothing to be feared from the weather.
I did not dare to get up till I heard Kezia's knock at the door—for that was one of grandmamma's rules, and though she had not many rules, those there were had to be obeyed, I can assure you.
I must have fallen asleep again, for the next thing I remember was hearing grandmamma's voice, and there she was, standing beside my bed.
'Oh, granny!' I called out, 'what a shame for you to be the one to wake me on your birthday.'