"A great sea!" exclaimed Laura, contemptuously. "With all those other wood-sheds right out in it, all the way down!"
"Well, there's another side to the sea; and capes, and islands," answered Frank, turning back. "Besides, I don't pretend it _is_; I only think it seems a little bit like it. I'm often put in mind of things. I don't know why."
"I'll tell you what it is like," said Laura. "It's like the gallery at church, where the singers stand up in a row, and look down, and all the people look up at them. I like high places. I like Cecilia, in the 'Bracelets,' sitting at the top, behind, when her name was called out for the prize; and 'they all made way, and she was on the floor in an instant.' I should like to have been Cecilia!"
"Laura! You're just like the Pharisees! You're always wishing for long clothes and high seats!"
"There ain't any Pharisees, nowadays," said Laura, securely. After which, of course, there was nothing more to be insisted.
Mrs. Lake, the housekeeper, came to the middle upper window, and moved the blind a little. Frank and Laura were behind the fir. They saw her through the branches. She, through the farther thickness of the tree, did not notice them.
"That was good," said Laura. "She would have beckoned us in. I hate that forefinger of hers; it's always hushing or beckoning. It's only two inches long. What makes us have to mind it so?"
"She puts it all into those two inches," answered Frank. "All the _must_ there is in the house. And then you've got to."
"Laura," said Frank, gravely, "I don't believe father is going to get well. What do you suppose they're letting us stay at home from school for?"
"O, that," said Laura, "was because Mrs. Lake didn't have time to sew the sleeves into your brown dress."
"I could have worn my gingham, Laura. What if he should die pretty soon? I heard her tell Luclarion that there must be a change before long. They talk in little bits, Laura, and they say it solemn."
The children were silent for a few minutes. Frank sat looking through the fir-tree at the far-off flecks of blue.
Mr. Shiere had been ill a long time. They could hardly think, now, what it would seem again not to have a sick father; and they had had no mother for several years,--many out of their short remembrance of life. Mrs. Lake had kept the house, and mended their clothes, and held up her forefinger at them. Even when Mr. Shiere was well, he had been a reserved man, much absorbed in business since his wife's death, he had been a very sad man. He loved his children, but he was very little with them. Frank and Laura could not feel the shock and loss that children feel when death comes and robs them suddenly of a close companionship.