'I don't think Aunt Mary will ever let them, she hates the country; and though she likes to have a place for the name of the thing, she does not want to live there, especially where there are so many of us; and then, Felix's situation!'
'Well, I did not say anything myself. It is only Aunt Mary--it is very foolish of people, but, you see, they _will_. As to Marilda, I believe she would like to stand behind the counter with him this minute.'
'Marilda is the oddest and best girl I ever heard of!'
'You may say that. And so ignorant she was! She had a great velvet-and-gold Church Service, and hardly guessed there was any Bible or Prayer-Book besides. I am sure Felix cannot have had more work to teach that youth than I have had with Marilda. Such a jumble as she had picked up! She really had only little baby prayers to say, till she saw my book.'
'What a blessing you must be to her!' said Wilmet, fondly looking at her sister.
'Well, I do hope so. You must know she was regularly struck with dear Papa. I am sure he is the first saint in her calendar, and everything is--"What did Cousin Edward say?" And when once she has made up her mind that a thing is right, she will blunder on through fire and water, but she will do it.'
'Then,' said Cherry, 'she ought to try and learn, and not to be awkward because of obedience.'
Alda burst out laughing. 'People can only do what they can. Marilda trying to be graceful would be worse than Marilda floundering her own way. But she really is the best and kindest girl living, and she gets on much better for having me to keep her out of scrapes.'
Wilmet went to bed that night thankful to have Alda's head on the pillow beside her, and most thankful for the tokens that she watched among her brothers and sisters, which showed how much her father's influence was extending beyond his short life.
'They closed around the fire, And all in turn essayed to paint The rival merits of their saint; A theme that ne'er can tire A holy maid, for be it known That their saint's honour is their own.' _Scott._
The thirteen Underwoods did not meet again in the same house for many a long day, and when they did, it was on a grey misty morning in the Christmas week of the year following; and the blinds were down, and the notes of the knell clashing out overhead, as the door was opened to Edgar, Alda, and Clement, as they arrived together, having been summoned late on the previous night by a telegram with tidings that their mother had been struck by a paralysis. They knew what to expect when Felix, with one of the little ones on his arm, came quietly down the stairs and admitted them. All they had to ask, was 'when,' and 'how;' and to hear, that the long living death had ended in peaceful insensibility at last. Then they followed him upstairs to the room where the others sat, hushed, over their pen or their books, where Wilmet, her eyes gushing with quiet tears, held Alda in her embrace, and Geraldine, after her first eager kiss, gazed wistfully at Edgar as though there must be comfort in the very sight of him, if she could only feel it; while the very little ones opened their puzzled eyes on the new-comers as strangers.