"How sweet Captain is! Her big brown eyes are as clear and kind as Grannie's, and her voice is just the nicest I have ever heard. How I should love to be like her, to make all that difference when I went into a miserable house! Poor Mrs. Smith looked quite bright; and such a change in the children! If I could be an Officer, now, and go about making people happy, how delightful that would be!"
Then, with a new and true humility that is only just beginning to make itself felt in her heart, she adds:—
"Ah! but I'm not good enough. I'm too impatient, too irritable. No, no, I haven't learnt yet to be a good Soldier—why, I haven't learnt yet how to make one home happy. I must learn to serve with patience. I must conquer myself; then, perhaps, in the days to come, the Lord will open the way to me, and I, too, may go into sad homes as a messenger of peace and love."
"Betty!" Mother's voice, calling querulously from the first-floor landing. Betty runs upstairs. Mother has a shawl round her shoulders, and looks very gloomy and upset.
"Betty, can't you keep the children quiet? My head aches dreadfully, but it's quite useless to try and get any sleep with Jennie and Pollie stamping about just over one's head. I sent them up to the attic to be out of the way, and they've done nothing but quarrel ever since—tiresome little good-for-nothings!"
"Oh, of course, they must come down at once, mother. Shall I send them out for a walk?"
"No, indeed, they're so dreadfully rough, throwing stones and shouting themselves hoarse like a couple of street boys. I don't know what I've done, I'm sure, to have such troublesome children."
Betty fetches her two younger sisters down from the attic, and sends them out to play in the small garden-yard at the back of the house. She has a great deal of difficulty, for they are both so headstrong and unruly that they will hardly obey at all. At last she persuades them to settle down to a game of horses, and goes back.
But five minutes have barely elapsed when mother's voice is heard again.
"Betty, what are those children doing? I declare their noise is making me quite ill!"