Lucy was down at the usual breakfast-time, but had to wait more than an hour before any one appeared, except Amy, who sat contentedly on her knee, and listened to more reading out of Lucy's Testament, and had even learned two verses of a hymn, before Stella at last appeared.
"How foolish you were to get up so early!" she said, when Amy had told her how long they had been down. "I think it is so nice to lie as long as you like, Sunday mornings! I used to think it so hard at Ashleigh that you _would_ always have breakfast as early as other days!"
"We never saw any reason for being later on Sunday. Indeed, papa always liked to have us earlier. He said it was the most precious day of the week, and that, though he could excuse a hard-worked labouring man for taking an extra sleep on Sunday, we had no such excuse; and to try to shorten the day was dishonouring to Him who gave it."
"What in the world would he have said of Edwin then," said Stella, "who often sleeps till it is too late to go to church, and then he stays at home and sleeps more?"
Lucy could not help smiling; but as Sophy came in just then, she did not need to make any reply. Amy was eager to repeat to her sister the hymn she had just been learning, but Sophy did not seem to care about it, and said to Lucy, "You had better not teach her any more hymns. The doctor says she should not be allowed to study anything till her constitution is stronger. Besides, I don't believe in filling children's heads with things that make them think about death too soon."
Lucy felt a little vexed and a good deal surprised at what was to her so new an experience. She had not dreamed that any one could object to teaching a child those blessed gospel truths which will shed either on life or on death the truest light. But while she felt a strong interest in and attraction towards her cousin Sophy, she instinctively felt that on such subjects she would be quite unapproachable.
Mrs. Brooke surprised Lucy with the unexpected decision that her deficiencies in dress must keep her at home that day. She felt as if it was almost wrong to submit,--her dear father would have so much disapproved of any one's staying away from the house of God for such a reason. But then she remembered that while under her aunt's charge it was her duty to yield a deference to her wishes, unless she absolutely violated her conscience in so doing, and that her father would also have said, "Ye younger, be subject to the elder," and would have told her that, though prevented from going up to an earthly sanctuary, she could worship God at home in the sanctuary of her heart.