"That's right," replied Wealthy, who was a little upset, and tearful still. "A good appetite's a good thing,—next best to a good conscience, I think."
Eyebright's spirits were mounting as rapidly as quicksilver. Bessie Mather appeared at the gate as she finished her last mouthful, and, giving Wealthy a great hug, Eyebright ran out to meet her, with a lightness and gayety of heart which surprised even herself. The blue sky seemed bluer than ever before, the grass greener, the sunshine was like yellow gold. Every little thing that happened made her laugh. It was as though a black cloud had been rolled away from between her and the light.
"I wonder what makes me so particularly happy to-night," she thought, as she sat on the steps waiting for papa, after Bessie was gone. "It's queer that I should, when I've been so naughty—and all."
But it was not queer, though Eyebright felt it so. The world never looks so fair and bright as to eyes newly washed by tears of sorrow for faults forgiven; and hearts which are emptied of unkind feelings grow light at once, as if happiness were the rule of the world and not the exception.
CHAPTER VI.
CHANGES.
t happens now and then in life that small circumstances link themselves on to great ones, and in this way become important, when otherwise they might pass out of mind and be forgotten. Such was the case with that day's naughtiness. Eyebright remembered it always, and never without a sharp prick of pain, because of certain things that followed soon afterward, and of which I must tell you in this chapter.
Miss Fitch's winter term opened on the 15th of September. The boys and girls were not sorry to begin school, I think. They had "played themselves out" during the long vacation, and it was rather a pleasant change now to return to lessons and regular hours. Every thing seemed new and interesting after three months' absence, the schoolhouse, the Green, all the cubby-holes and hiding-places, just as shabby playthings laid aside for a while come out looking quite fresh, and do not seem like old ones at all. There was the beautiful autumn weather, beside, making each moment of liberty doubly delightful. Day after day, week after week, this perfect weather lasted, till it seemed as though the skies had forgotten the trick of raining, or how to be of any color except clear, dazzling blue. The wind blew softly and made lovely little noises in the boughs, but there was a cool edge to its softness now which added to the satisfaction of breathing it. The garden beds were gay as ever, but trees began to show tips of crimson and orange, and now and then a brown leaf floated gently down, as though to hint that summer was over and the autumn really begun. Small drifts of these brown leaves formed in the hollows of the road and about fence corners. The boys and girls kicked them aside to get at the chestnut burs which had fallen and mixed with them,—spiky burs, half open, and showing the glossy-brown nut within. It was a great apple-year, too, and the orchards were laden with ripe fruit. Nearly all the Saturday afternoons were spent by the children in apple-gathering or in nutting, and autumn seemed to them as summer had seemed before autumn, spring before summer, and winter in its turn before spring,—the very pleasantest of the four pleasant seasons of the year.