The Story of the White-Rock Cove | Page 6

to the more remote part of the house, where a room next to my own had, at my earnest request, been prepared for my cousin, and in the decoration of which I felt peculiar interest. There was a twin bedstead to my own, and various other pieces of furniture corresponding; moreover, in an impulse of generosity I had transferred certain of my own possessions into Aleck's apartment, with a noble determination to be extremely liberal.
My mother noticed these at once, but I was a little disappointed that she did not commend my liberality.
"You see, mamma," I explained, "there's my own green boat with the union-jack, and the bat I liked best before papa gave me my last new one, and the dissected map of the queens of England."
"Yes, I see, Willie," replied my mother; proceeding in the meantime to certain readjustments urgently called for, by the critical position of the bat standing on the drawers against the wall, and the boat nearly falling from the mantelpiece.
"There, my child," she said; "the bat will do better in the comer, and the ship upon the drawers. And now the puzzle: why, Willie, this is the very one of which I heard you say there were three pieces missing; and then Mrs. Barbauld you think childish for yourself!"
My countenance fell, for I had been indulging in the cheap generosity of giving away second-bests, and I could see my mother did not admire such liberality. Indeed, after a moment's consideration, I was ashamed of it myself, and hastened with alacrity to hide Mrs. Barbauld, and the Queens of England, and one or two other trifles, in the obscurity of my own room; whilst my mother decided upon the best position for a couple of prettily-framed pictures which she had had brought up, and fastened an illuminated text, similar to one in my own room, opposite the bed--"The things which are seen are temporal; the things which are unseen are eternal"--and placed a little statuette of a guardian angel, with the scroll underneath, "He shall give His angels charge over thee," over the bed-head.
"What a good thought, mamma," I said, when she had finished her arrangements; "that looks exactly like mine."
"Just what I want it to look, Willie. You and Aleck are to be as like brothers to each other as may be. You have never had brother or sister of your own, Willie--not that you can remember [there had been one infant sister, whose death, when about a month old, had been my parents' greatest sorrow]--but now that your cousin is likely to stay a long time with us, I hope that you and he will be as much as possible like brothers to each other."
Then my mother, who was sitting at the foot of the bed, drew me towards her, and quietly talked to me about some of the new duties as well as temptations which would come with new pleasures, bidding me remember that I was to try never to think first of myself, but to be willing to consider others before myself. We had been reading the 13th of First Corinthians that morning together, and her observations seemed to me as if drawn straight from that source; indeed, before long she reminded me of it, bidding me remember it supplied the standard we ought to aim at, and telling me that strength would be always given, if I sought it, to help me to be what I wanted to be; it was only those who did not heartily strive who got beaten in the conflict.
It is not to be supposed that this was all uttered in a set speech; I am giving the substance only of a few minutes' quiet talk which we had up there in the bed-room together that morning before luncheon, and which I confess to having felt at the time rather superfluous, my delight in the anticipation of my cousin's arrival convincing me that there would be no fear of my finding anything but happiness in my intercourse with him.
My mother, on the contrary, as I afterwards had reason to know, was by no means without anxiety. She knew that hitherto I had been completely shielded from every possible trial. The darling of herself and my father, and, as the only child, a favourite amongst the attached members of our household, my wants had been all anticipated, and every pleasure suited to my age had been planned for me so ingeniously, that I had never had the chance of showing myself selfish or ill-tempered. She feared that when for the first time I found myself not first considered in all arrangements, I might fail in those particular points of conduct in which she was most anxious I should triumph.
My mother's gentle admonitions, to which I at the