The Kings Daughters | Page 7

that?"
Alice Mount thought a moment. She had spoken before almost without thinking.
"Daughter," she said, "if their Father, which is also ours, had come with them visible to our eyes, we should bring forth our best for Him; and He will look for us to do it for the little ones whose angels see His Face. Ay, fetch the broth, Rose."
Perhaps Cissy had overheard a few words, for wheel the bowl of broth was put into her hands, she said, "Can you spare it? Didn't you want it for something else than us?"
"We can spare it, little maid," said Alice, with a smile.
"Sup it up," added Rose, laying her hand on the child's shoulder; "and much good may it do thee! Then, when you are both warmed and rested, I'll set forth with you."
Cissy did not allow that to be long. She drank her broth, admonished Will by a look to finish his--for he was disposed to loiter,--and after sitting still for a few minutes, rose and put down the bowl.
"We return you many thanks," she said in her prim little way, "and I think, if you please, we ought to go home. Father 'll be back by the time we get there; and I don't like to be away when he comes. Mother bade me not. She said he'd miss her worse if he didn't find me. You see, I've got to do for Mother now, both for Father and the children."
Alice Mount thought it very funny to hear this little mite talking about "the children," as if she were not a child at all.
"Well, tarry a minute till I tie on my hood," said Rose. "I'll be ready before you can say, `This is the house that Jack built.'"
"What do you with the babe, little maid, when you go forth?" asked Alice.
"Baby?" said Cissy, looking up. "Oh, we leave her with Ursula Felstede, next door. She's quite safe till we come back."
Rose now came in from the inner room, where she had been putting on her hood and mantle. There were no bonnets then. What women called bonnets in those days were close thick hoods, made of silk, velvet, fur, or woollen stuff of some sort. Nor had they either shawls or jackets--only loose mantles, for out-door wear. Rose took up the jar of meal.
"Please, I can carry it on one side," said Cissy rather eagerly.
"Thou mayest carry thyself," said Rose. "That's plenty. I haven't walked five miles to-day. I'm a bit stronger than thou, too."
Little Will had not needed telling that he was no longer wanted to carry the jar; he was already off after wild flowers, as if the past five miles had been as many yards, though he had assured Cissy at least a dozen times as they came along that he did not know how he was ever to get home, and as they were entering Bentley had declared himself unable to take another step. Cissy shook her small head with the air of a prophetess.
"Will shouldn't say such things!" said she. "He said he couldn't walk a bit further--that I should have to carry him as well as the jar--and I don't know how I could, unless I'd poured the meal out and put him in, and he'd never have gone, I'm sure; and now, do but look at him after those buttercups!"
"He didn't mean to tell falsehoods," said Rose. "He was tired, I dare say. Lads will be lads, thou knowest."
"Oh dear, I don't know how I'm to bring up these children to be good people!" said Cissy, as gravely as if she had been their grandmother. "Ursula says children are great troubles, and I'm sure it's true. If there's any place where Will should be, that's just where he always isn't; and if there's one spot where he shouldn't be, that's the place where you commonly find him. Baby can't walk yet, so she's safe; but whatever I shall do when she can, I'm sure I don't know! I can't be in all the places at once where two of them shouldn't be."
Rose could not help laughing.
"Little maid," she said kindly, "thy small shoulders will never hold the world, nor even thy father's cottage. Hast thou forgot what thou saidst not an half-hour gone, that God takes care of you all?"
"Oh yes, He takes big care of us," was Cissy's answer. "He'll see that we have meat and clothes and so forth, and that Father gets work. But He'll hardly keep Will and Baby out of mischief, will He? Isn't that too little for Him?"
"The whole world is but a speck, little Cicely, compared with Him. If He will humble Himself to see thee and me at all, I reckon He is as like to keep Will out of mischief as to