Seaboard Parish, vol 1 | Page 4

well enough be true, even if I did not say that so it was. But there was always the choice of some individual treat, which was determined solely by the preference of the individual in authority. Constance had chosen "a long ride with papa."
I suppose a parent may sometimes be right when he speaks with admiration of his own children. The probability of his being correct is to be determined by the amount of capacity he has for admiring other people's children. However this may be in my own case, I venture to assert that Constance did look very lovely that morning. She was fresh as the young day: we were early people--breakfast and prayers were over, and it was nine o'clock as she stood on the steps and I approached her from the lawn.
"O, papa! isn't it jolly?" she said merrily.
"Very jolly indeed, my dear," I answered, delighted to hear the word from the lips of my gentle daughter. She very seldom used a slang word, and when she did, she used it like a lady. Shall I tell you what she was like? Ah! you could not see her as I saw her that morning if I did. I will, however, try to give you a general idea, just in order that you and I should not be picturing to ourselves two very different persons while I speak of her.
She was rather little, and so slight that she looked tall. I have often observed that the impression of height is an affair of proportion, and has nothing to do with feet and inches. She was rather fair in complexion, with her mother's blue eyes, and her mother's long dark wavy hair. She was generally playful, and took greater liberties with me than any of the others; only with her liberties, as with her slang, she knew instinctively when, where, and how much. For on the borders of her playfulness there seemed ever to hang a fringe of thoughtfulness, as if she felt that the present moment owed all its sparkle and brilliance to the eternal sunlight. And the appearance was not in the least a deceptive one. The eternal was not far from her--none the farther that she enjoyed life like a bird, that her laugh was merry, that her heart was careless, and that her voice rang through the house--a sweet soprano voice--singing snatches of songs (now a street tune she had caught from a London organ, now an air from Handel or Mozart), or that she would sometimes tease her elder sister about her solemn and anxious looks; for Wynnie, the eldest, had to suffer for her grandmother's sins against her daughter, and came into the world with a troubled little heart, that was soon compelled to flee for refuge to the rock that was higher than she. Ah! my Constance! But God was good to you and to us in you.
"Where shall we go, Connie?" I said, and the same moment the sound of the horses' hoofs reached us.
"Would it be too far to go to Addicehead?" she returned.
"It is a long ride," I answered.
"Too much for the pony?"
"O dear, no--not at all. I was thinking of you, not of the pony."
"I'm quite as able to ride as the pony is to carry me, papa. And I want to get something for Wynnie. Do let us go."
"Very well, my dear," I said, and raised her to the saddle--if I may say _raised_, for no bird ever hopped more lightly from one twig to another than she sprung from the ground on her pony's back.
In a moment I was beside her, and away we rode.
The shadows were still long, the dew still pearly on the spiders' webs, as we trotted out of our own grounds into a lane that led away towards the high road. Our horses were fresh and the air was exciting; so we turned from the hard road into the first suitable field, and had a gallop to begin with. Constance was a good horse-woman, for she had been used to the saddle longer than she could remember. She was now riding a tall well-bred pony, with plenty of life--rather too much, I sometimes thought, when I was out with Wynnie; but I never thought so when I was with Constance. Another field or two sufficiently quieted both animals--I did not want to have all our time taken up with their frolics--and then we began to talk.
"You are getting quite a woman now, Connie, my dear," I said.
"Quite an old grannie, papa," she answered.
"Old enough to think about what's coming next," I said gravely.
"O, papa! And you are always telling us that we must not think about the morrow, or even the next hour. But, then, that's in the pulpit," she added, with