No sooner was Nellie released from the tea-table than she was busy again over her Bible and the slips of paper, quite lost to every thing else around her. The children chattered away without disturbing her; and she did not even notice that papa and mamma, as they talked in low tones on the other side of the room, were looking at her in a manner which would have made it plain to an observer that she was the subject of their conversation.
By and by Daisy came to kiss her for good-night. She raised her head slightly, and turned her cheek to her little sister, answering pleasantly enough, but with an absent air, showing plainly that her thoughts were busy with something else.
Daisy held strong and natural objections to this not over-civil mode of receiving her caress, and, drawing back her rosy lips from the upraised cheek, said,--
"No, I shan't kiss you that way. I want your mouf; it's not polite to stick up a cheek."
An expression of impatience flitted over Nellie's face; but it was gone in an instant, and, dropping her pencil, she put both arms about Daisy, and gave her a hearty and affectionate kiss upon her puckered little mouth.
Daisy was satisfied, and ran off, but, pausing as she reached the door, she looked back at her sister and said,--
"You're an awful busy girl these days, Nellie; the play is all gone out of you."
Nellie smiled faintly, hardly heeding the words; but other eyes which were watching her thought also that she did indeed look as if "all the play had gone out" of her. She returned to her work as Daisy left her side, but even as she did so she drew herself up with a sigh, and passed her hand wearily across her forehead.
"It is time a stop was put to this," whispered her father, and mamma assented with a rather melancholy nod of her head.
Not two minutes had passed when Daisy's little feet were heard pattering down the stairs again, and her glowing face appeared in the open door.
"Ruth says she can't put baby down to put me to bed," she proclaimed with an unmistakable air of satisfaction in the circumstances which made it necessary for mother or sister to perform that office for her. "Who wants to do it?" she added, looking from one to the other.
Mrs. Ransom looked over at Nellie, as if expecting she would offer to go with Daisy; but the little girl paid no attention, did not even seem to hear the child.