"Well," said Farmer Morgan, drawing a long breath, "that minister in the book was a most likely chap as ever I heard of; if more of 'em acted like that, I should have a higher opinion of them than I do. It's a very well told story; now, that's a fact."
"A pack of lies, the whole of it." This from Mother Morgan; not said severely, but in a deprecatory tone, as though she felt herself obliged to say it, as a sort of punishment for having allowed herself to become interested.
"Well, now," said Farmer Morgan, dropping his head to one side, with a thoughtful air, "I don't know about that; there is nothing so dreadfully unlikely about it. And that smart chap had a streak of good luck and a streak of common sense; and I've known, myself, exactly such a family as that set of boys, father and all, hard as they were. Whether it is lies or not, it is told exactly as though it all might have happened. I don't object to hearing it, anyhow. It takes up the time, though; I had no idea it was nine o'clock."
"Nine o'clock isn't late," ventured Dorothy. "Stuart's folks sit up till ten nearly every evening; I always see a light in their front room when I go to bed."
"Yes, and they don't get up till long after daylight, and don't have breakfast until it's almost time for dinner. I never brought my children up to habits of that kind, thank fortune."
There was a good deal of sharpness in the mother's tone by this time. The reaction was coming over her; she was growing vexed to think she had allowed her heart to throb in sympathy with the trials of a mother whose experience was only a "pack of lies," forgetting for the moment that touches of the bitterness of that mother's experience over her youngest born had already come to her. If only she would make the experience of prayer her own!
Louise arose promptly; she was satisfied with her experiment, and judged it wise to beat an immediate retreat.
"Come, Lewis," she said, her hand on the pretty lamp; "if I am late to breakfast to-morrow morning, father will think it is a bad book. Isn't that a dainty design for a lamp-handle, mother?"
"It's a dangerous thing to carry around," the mother said grimly, meaning the lamp, and not the handle. "I never take up the paper that I don't read about an accident of some sort with kerosene lamps. If I could have had my way, there should never one of them have come into this house."
"Oh, but this is a new patent; if Lewis should stumble and drop it, the light would go instantly out. Look I just a little motion, such as, of course, the lamp would get if it fell, and the light is gone." Suiting the action to the word, the flame was instantly extinguished.