“Well, that’s odd,” said Lizzie; “I always dread them. In the morning of the day when our boys return, I always think as soon as I awake, ‘Dear, dear, we’ll have no more peace in the house!’ They are so noisy, so rude, so troublesome, so fond of worrying and teasing us girls, I’m sure that it’s a happy day for us when the coach comes to take them back to school.”
“They must be very different from George. I always am happier when he is with me; and it seems as if he made me better too.”
“But he cannot amuse himself with you. Does he not like hocky, and cricket, and football, and despise the diversions of girls?”
“He does like cricket, and that sort of thing, and is a capital hand at it too, but he does not despise playing with us. I do not think that he despises anything but what is mean or wrong. You don’t know how fond little baby is of him; and as for Eddy, he is never so merry as when he is at romps with Georgie, or listening to one of his stories. I don’t know how it is, but every one seems more happy, and everything looks brighter, when Georgie is at home.”
A funny fancy came into my head at this moment. I could not help recollecting what the Thimble had told me about gold—how that metal, which is so weighty and precious, yet can be spread into leaves so thin as to brighten the paper on the wall and adorn the leaves of the book. I wondered if there were anything like this to be found in human life; if the precious thing called virtue, which my companion had likened to gold, could also be found to extend to trifles, and in the smaller occurrences of life show its power to brighten and adorn. It was an odd idea, but it arose from what I heard Lily say that morning of her brother; and when I had an opportunity of watching George myself, it recurred to me again and again.
So the young ladies sat there chatting and diverting themselves for an hour or more, playing at cat’s-cradle, comparing their dolls, telling stories of the past, and building castles in the air for the future. Eddy more than once broke in on their _tête-à-tête_, but was told to go away, and not disturb them. Driven to his own resources, the child rode round the room on a footstool; but this amusement was stopped, as being too noisy. He then kicked his heels for some time on the sofa, till, finding the occupation tiresome, he made the discovery of a little hole in a cushion, from which he managed to abstract several tiny feathers, which amused him for a quarter of an hour. Then I watched him—for no eye seemed to watch him but mine—when he wearily sauntered to the other side of the room, and fixed his round eyes upon an instrument which, as I have since learned, is called a thermometer. He stared up at this, till his curiosity grew strong. He dragged, with some labour, a chair to the spot, and scrambling up upon the seat, brought his face to a level with the glass. He put out his hand and touched the round ball at the bottom of the instrument, examining it like any little philosopher; he then pressed it a little harder, I suppose, for I saw the child give a slight start, as if some mischief had been done, and then scramble from the chair faster than he had got up, and throw himself down on the floor.