Melbourne House, Volume 1 | Page 3

covered the little "apse," and creeping round the corner, was advancing to the windows, and promising to case the first one in a loving frame of its own. It seemed that no carriage-road came to this place, other than the dressed gravelled path which the pony-chaise had travelled, and which made a circuit on approaching the rear of the church. The worshippers must come humbly on foot; and a wicket in front of the church led out upon a path suited for such. Perhaps a public road might be not far off, but at least here there was no promise of it. In the edge of the thicket, at the side of the church, was the girl whose appearance Daisy had hailed.
"I sha'n't wait for you," cried her brother, as she sprang down.
"No--go--I don't want you,"--and Daisy made few steps over the greensward to the thicket. Then it was,--"O Nora! how do you do? what are you doing?"--and "O Daisy! I'm getting wintergreens." Anybody who has ever been nine, or ten, or eleven years old, and gone in the woods looking for wintergreens, knows what followed. The eager plunging into the thickest of the thicket; the happy search of every likely bank or open ground in the shelter of some rock; the careless, delicious straying from rock to rock, and whithersoever the bank or the course of the thicket might lead them. The wintergreens sweet under foot, sweet in the hands of the children, the whole air full of sweetness. Naturally their quest led them to the thicker and wilder grown part of the wood; prettier there, they declared it to be, where the ground became broken, and there were ups and downs, and rocky dells and heights, and to turn a corner was to come upon something new. They did not note nor care where they went, intent upon business and pleasure together, till they came out suddenly upon a little rocky height, where a small spot was shaded with cedars and set with benches around and under them. The view away off over the tops of the trees to other heights and hills in the distance was winningly fair, especially as the sun shewed it just now in bright, cool light and shadow. It was getting near sundown.
"Look where we are!" cried Nora, "at the Sunday-school!"
Daisy seated herself without answering.
"I think," went on Nora, as she followed the example, "it is the very prettiest place for a Sunday-school that there ever was."
"Have you been in other Sunday-schools?" asked Daisy.
"Yes, in two."
"What were they like?"
"O they were in a church, or in some sort of a room. I like being out of doors best; don't you?"
"Yes, I think so. But was the school just like this in other things?"
"O yes; only once I had a teacher who always asked us what we thought about everything. I didn't like that."
"What you thought about everything?" said Daisy.
"Yes; every verse and question, she would say, 'What do you think about it?' and I didn't like that, because I never thought anything."
Whereat Daisy fell into a muse. Her question recurred to her; but it was hardly likely, she felt, that her little companion could enlighten her. Nora was a bright, lively, spirited child, with black eyes and waves of beautiful black hair; neither at rest; sportive energy and enjoyment in every motion. Daisy was silent.
"What is supposed to be going on here?" said a stronger voice behind them, which brought both their heads round. It was to see another head just making its way up above the level of their platform; a head that looked strong and spirited as the voice had sounded; a head set with dark hair, and eyes that were too full of light to let you see what colour they were. Both children came to their feet, one saying, "Marmaduke!" the other, "Mr. Dinwiddie!"
"What do two such mature people do when they get together? I should like to know," said the young man as he reached the top.
"Talking, sir," said Daisy.
"Picking wintergreens," said the other, in a breath.
"Talking! I dare say you do. If both things have gone on together, like your answers," said he, helping himself out of Nora's stock of wintergreens,--"you must have had a basket of talk."
"That basket isn't full, sir," said Daisy.
"My dear," said Mr. Dinwiddie, diving again into his sister's, "that basket never is; there's a hole in it somewhere."
"You are making a hole in mine," said Nora, laughing. "You sha'n't do it, Marmaduke; they're for old Mrs. Holt, you know."
"Come along, then," said her brother; "as long as the baskets are not full the fun isn't over."
And soon the children thought so. Such a scrambling to new places as they had then; such a harvest of finest wintergreens as they all gathered together;