Agnes found it no easy task to bring into training minds so ignorant and so utterly undisciplined as those of her little pupils. Left entirely to themselves, as they had been for many months, with a mother too indolent to trouble herself about any systematic plan of government, and a father too easy and good-natured to carry out the many plans he was ever forming for their “breaking in;” scolded and fretted at by their older sisters, to whom they were perfect torments; by turns playing harmoniously, and then quarrelling most vigorously,—they roamed the house and grounds, doing mischief everywhere, and bringing wrath upon their heads at every turn.
With a perfect horror of anything like study, they had expected with great dread the arrival of a governess, as putting a final stop to all their fun and freedom. This dread had been in nowise diminished by the constant remarks of their older sisters upon governesses in the abstract, and their own expected governess in particular. One evening with Agnes served to dispel the horror, so far as she was concerned, though the dread of books was still as great as ever. Before the evening was over, Agnes had them all round her, as she sat on the sofa, telling them beautiful stories, and asking them questions.
“Have you any pretty flowers in the woods about here?” she asked.
“Oh, lots!” answered Rosa; “yellow flowers, and blue flowers, and white flowers.”
“Then if you would like to learn something of Botany, so as to know the names of all these beautiful flowers, we will take many pleasant rambles in the woods, and gather the lovely wild flowers, and I will teach you how to press them.”
“But we haven’t got any Botany books,” said little Jessie.
“Oh, I think we shall not need any books, for all the Botany I shall teach you, Jessie; and if we do, we will take the leaves of the flowers for the leaves of the books, and the flowers themselves for the pictures. Do you not think we can make beautiful books that way? Jessie, can you read?”
“I can!” said Rosa, while Jessie hung her curly head.
“And can you write, Rosa?”
“No. I can make straight marks,” answered Rosa.