The thought seemed to have struck her for the first time, and she looked up eagerly for an answer, while Chimo gave a deep sigh of indifference, and went to sleep, or pretended to do so, where he was.
“In the woods, Eda. How do you think you will like it?”
“Oh, I’m sure I shall like it very much,” replied the little one. “I’ve often wished to live in the woods altogether like the Indians, and do nothing but wander about and pull berries.”
“Ah, Jessie,” said Stanley, “what an idle little baggage your daughter is! I fear she’s a true chip of the old block!”
“Which do you consider the old block,” retorted Mrs Stanley—“you or me?”
“Never mind, wife; we’ll leave that an open question.—But tell me, Eda, don’t you think that wandering about and pulling berries would be a very useless sort of life?”
“No,” replied Edith, gravely. “Mamma often tells me that God wants me to be happy, and I’m quite sure that wandering about all day in the beautiful woods would make me happy.”
“But, my darling,” said Stanley, smiling at the simplicity of this plausible argument in favour of an idle life, “don’t you know that we ought to try to make others happy too, as well as ourselves?”
“Oh yes,” replied Eda, with a bright smile, “I know that, papa; and I would try to make everybody happy by going with them and showing them where the finest flowers and berries were to be found; and so we would all be happy together, and that’s what God wants, is it not?”
Mr Stanley glanced towards his wife with an arch smile. “There, Jessie, what think you of that?”