Probable Sons | Page 7

run away, and let this be your last breakage. I cannot be worried with your punishments."
"I will try to be very good, nurse, always," said Milly while being tucked up in bed that night, "because Uncle Edward is very puzzled when he has to punish me. He doesn't know what to do. He looked quite unhappy and said it worried him."
And Sir Edward as he finished his dinner in silence and solitude muttered to himself,--
"That child is certainly a great nuisance at times, but, upon my word, I quite miss her this evening. Children after all are original, if they are nothing else, and she is one of the most original that I have ever met."
It was Sunday morning, and Sir Edward was just starting for church. As he stood over the blazing fire in the hall buttoning a glove, a little voice came to him from the staircase:
"Uncle Edward, may I come down and speak to you?"
Permission being given, Milly danced down the stairs, and then, slipping her little hand into her uncle's, she lifted a coaxing face to his.
"Will you take me to church with you? Nurse thinks I'm almost big enough now, and I have been to church in the afternoon sometimes."
Sir Edward hesitated. "If you come, you will fidget, I expect. I cannot stand that."
"I will sit as still as a mouse. I won't fidget."
"If you behave badly I shall never take you again. Yes, you may come. Be quick and get ready."
A few moments after, Sir Edward and his little niece were walking down the avenue, she clasping a large Bible under her arm, and trying in vain to match her steps with his.
The squire's pew was one of the old-fashioned high ones, and Milly's head did not reach the top of it. Very quiet and silent she was during the service, and very particular to follow her uncle's example in every respect, though she nearly upset his gravity at the outset by taking off her hat in imitation of him and covering her face with it. But when the sermon commenced her large dark eyes were riveted on the clergyman as he gave out the text so well known to her:--
"I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son"; and though the sermon was half an hour in length, her gaze never left the pulpit.
"Uncle Edward," she said, when their steps at length turned homewards, "do you know, I heard all the sermon, and understood it pretty well except the long words. Wasn't it nice to hear about the probable son?"
"'Prodigal,' you mean. Cannot you pronounce your words properly?"
Sir Edward's tone was irritable. He had not been feeling very comfortable under the good vicar's words.
"I can't say that; I always forget it. Nurse says one long word is as good as another sometimes. Uncle, what did the clergyman mean by people running away from God? No one does, do they?"
"A great many do," was the dry response.
"But how can they? Because God is everywhere. No one can't get away from God, and why do they want to? Because God loves them so."
"Why did the prodigal want to get away?"
Milly considered.
"I s'pose he wanted to have some a--aventures, don't you call them? I play at that, you know. All sorts of things happen to me before I sit down at the beech tree, but--but it's so different with God. Why, I should be fearful unhappy if I got away from Him. I couldn't, could I, uncle? Who would take care of me and love me when I'm asleep? And who would listen to my prayers? Why, Uncle Edward, I think I should die of fright if I got away from God. Do tell me I couldn't."
Milly had stopped short, and grasped hold of Sir Edward's coat in her growing excitement. He glanced at her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.
"You foolish child, there is no fear of your getting away from God. Don't be so excitable. We will change the subject. I want to see Maxwell, so we will go through the wood."
Maxwell was Sir Edward's head game-keeper, and a little later found them at his pretty cottage at the edge of the wood. It was Milly's first visit, and Mrs. Maxwell, a motherly-looking body, greeted her with such a sunshiny smile that the child drew near to her instinctively.
"What a lovely room," she exclaimed, looking round the homely little kitchen with a child's admiring eyes, "and what a beautiful cat! May I stroke her?"
Assent being given, Milly was soon seated in a large cushioned chair, a fat tabby cat on her lap, and while Sir Edward was occupied with his keeper she