HE next day was Sunday, such a warm bright day, it seemed almost like a little bit of summer come by mistake into September.
Winifred had slept soundly and well after her exertions of the previous evening, and she awoke refreshed and happy, feeling as every one else felt, the joyousness of all around in nature’s beautiful world.
“I feel so strong to-day, mamma,” she said, with one of her old, bright, childlike smiles. “So strong and so well. It is so nice!”
There was more colour than usual in the child’s face, more brightness in her eyes, more strength in her voice and in her movements. The mother folded her closely to her heart, and seemed almost to breathe a prayer over her.
“Mamma,” said Winifred earnestly, “may I go to church to-day? I should so like to. I haven’t been for six Sundays, and I do so want to go just once more, before—before the winter comes. I do feel so strong to-day.”
“I will talk to papa, darling. We should like to please you if we can. We will talk it over together, and see what can be done.”
“Thank you, mamma,” answered Winnie brightly. She was standing by the window now, and presently she added with a smile: “Mamma, if the weather keeps warm like this, it will be a long while before the swallows go, won’t it?”
“It will make a little difference, no doubt, dear,” answered the mother.
“I don’t feel as though I was quite ready for them to go yet,” continued Winifred gravely. “It would be nice if they would stay just a little longer.”
Mrs. Digby went away, and returned by-and-by to say that Winifred might be driven to church by Charley in the little pony-carriage, and then she would be able to enjoy the service, and walk back without too much fatigue. The child was very much pleased, and was ready in good time for the promised drive.
It was a lovely autumn day; the sun shone, the birds twittered, the air seemed full of sweet sounds, and everything looked as bright and happy as if such things as frost and cold and winter winds did not exist—as if summer were perpetual.
“Oh, Charley, isn’t it lovely?” cried Winifred with clasped hands and flushed cheeks. “Isn’t it just a perfect Sunday morning? I think it feels as if everything knew it was Sunday, birds and flowers and everything. Do you think they do?”
“I don’t know, Winnie,” answered Charley; but he did not laugh at her fancy.
Winifred thought a little, and by-and-by she said:
“Do you think it is always Sunday in heaven Charley?”
“I don’t know, Winnie; what makes you think about heaven?”
“I often think about it now, and to-day it just seems as if everything was like heaven. I wonder if it will always be Sunday there?”
Charley made no answer.
“I suppose it will, because, you see, Sunday is God’s day, and in heaven all days will be God’s, won’t they?”
“I suppose so.”
Winifred pursued the thought a little farther, and then added thoughtfully:
“Every day ought to be God’s day here, too, Charley, I think, only we don’t remember to make them so.”
“We couldn’t do with Sundays all the week, Winnie,” answered the boy. “The work would never get done at that rate.”
“I don’t quite mean that,” said Winnie smiling. “It would not be right to do no work. God would not like that at all; but it would be nice if all days seemed to belong to Him alike—working Sundays and resting Sundays. I’ve heard people say that lots of men and women never think about God, or about being good all the week, and think it’s quite enough to go to church on Sunday. I don’t think God can like that kind of Sunday-keeping.”
Charley was silent. He was conscious that he had been rather after this way of thinking himself—keeping his few thoughts of God and of heaven and holy things for Sunday use, and putting them quite out of his head during the busy week with its many pleasures and occupations. Was Winifred right in her theory? Ought every day to have its share of serious thought and prayer?
“It would not be very easy to work such a plan as that, Winnie.”
“Why not?”
“Why because—because. Oh, don’t you know, it’s so hard to remember about God always. I suppose it’s wrong; but I don’t feel as if I could keep it up, if I was to try and make every day a kind of Sunday. We can’t always be thinking of one thing.”
“No, I know we can’t, we can’t always be thinking exactly; but we can always be loving, you know,” answered Winnie earnestly. “We are not always thinking about papa and mamma; but we always love them, and we try every day to do as they wish, not to break rules, and not to vex them.”
“Ah yes, that is different.”
“Is it?”
“Well, it seems different to me.”
“I don’t think it is really very different, Charley. I don’t see why it should be, except that we ought to think even more about pleasing God than pleasing papa and mamma, though it is not very easy.”
“No, it isn’t; but I’ll think about what you’ve said, Winnie. I can’t think where all your grown-up ideas come from. Ronald and I never troubled our heads over such things when we were little—and we don’t very much now for the matter of that. What is it has changed you lately, Winnie?”
The boy looked into her face with a half-troubled, half-playful look, which Winnie answered by a very bright smile. She did not reply, for they had reached the church by this time; but she held Charley’s hand very fast as he led her to the pew.
Winifred felt almost as if she were dreaming, as she sat in her accustomed nook beside her mother, and looked round the grand old church, whose every detail was as familiar to her eyes as were the pictures and panelling of her nursery walls.
It was only six weeks since she had sat there last—only six weeks—but what a long, long time it seemed to the child!
It was almost like heaven the little girl thought when the organ began to play. The sunshine streaming through the coloured windows, seemed like a halo of glory. Everything was very solemn, very beautiful, and very peaceful. Winifred said again and again in her heart:
“I am so glad God let me come once again.”
Shadows of the darting swallows crossed the sunny windows now and again. Yes, the swallows never forgot her, Winifred thought, and the swallows were always fond of flying round the church. Dreamily the child recalled some verse of Holy Writ, which told how the swallows had made a nest in the sanctuary of the God of Hosts.
“I know God loves the swallows. I know it is He who takes care of them when they go, and shows them the way to go. He is sure—oh quite, quite sure to take care of me too.”
The clergyman’s text seemed to chime in peculiarly happily with the little girl’s thoughts:
“Suffer little children to come unto Me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
Winifred looked up into her mother’s face and smiled. Mrs. Digby pressed the little hand that was slipped into hers, and her eyes sparkled through a mist of tears as she smiled back.
Winifred walked home between her two brothers, who seemed very pleased and proud of their charge.
All three children were very merry and happy together, and Ronald built fine castles in the air of all the things they would do in the future, when Winnie should be strong and well again.
Charley, with all the hopefulness of a boy’s nature, joined in eagerly, and Winifred listened and smiled, and took her share in the talk, and she felt herself so strong and well that she wondered dreamily to herself whether she had made a mistake all this time, whether perhaps she would see the swallows go and come back again after all, without having herself to take an unknown journey into a far-off land.
As they neared the park-gates, Winifred made a suggestion:
“Let us go in and see little Phil. He will be so pleased; and then I can rest a little while.”
“Are you tired?”
“No; at least only a very little; but I should like to go and see Phil.”
“All right,” said Ronald; “come on.”
Phil’s couch was in the little garden to-day. The summer brightness had tempted him out.
“It seemed a pity to miss the last of the summer,” he said in answer to Charley’s question. “It could hardly last; but it was just lovely to feel the sun and fancy the summer had come back again.”
He was very pleased to see his visitors, and thanked Winifred over and over again for the books she had sent him, and the mittens she had made.
Winifred sat looking quietly about her, listening to the boys’ chatter. Phil was a great referee in matters pertaining to birds, and beasts, and fishes; and Charley and Ronald wanted to ask many questions about the respective advantages of keeping pigeons or rabbits—a point upon which their minds had been much exercised of late.
The talk was carried on with animation, and Winnie became interested as she listened. The talk had taken a wider range.
“I think you’d like guinea-fowls, Mr. Charley,” Phil was saying. “They’re pretty things, and more interesting, I think, than pigeons. You say Mr. Digby’s given you the little house at the bottom of the field; well, if you wired in a good run for them—he’d be sure to let you do that—why that is all you’d want, and they’d do splendidly, I’m almost sure; I kept a few once, and liked them a lot.”
“Guinea-fowls are jolly things,” cried Ronald. “I like to hear them call ‘go back!’ ‘go back!’ ‘go back!’ Let us have them, Charley. They’d be much nicer than rabbits or pigeons.”
“But,” said Charley, “it will cost so much more. We’ve got enough money to repair the house and buy some animals; but I’m afraid we sha’n’t be able to have a run wired in, and we couldn’t have them straying all over the place; we should lose them, and it would never do.”
Ronald’s face fell.
“Would it cost much?”
“Pretty much, I’m afraid. You see there would have to be the uprights, and the wire, and a door to get in and out; and they would want a good space or they wouldn’t do. I’m afraid it would cost two or three pounds.”
“Oh dear!” sighed Ronald, “then we can’t do it. I should have liked the guinea-fowls.”
“Oh yes,” cried Winnie, eagerly, “do get guinea-fowls; they are so pretty and funny. I have got a lot of money in my box—more than three pounds, I know. I will get the wire and wood, and make the run for them. Oh please let me, Charley! I should so like it!”
“But, Winnie, it doesn’t seem fair to take your money to spend over our animals.”
“Oh, but I want to do it, Charley, I should so like it; and I’m sure you would so like them when you had them. Do please let me make them their run. I don’t want my money—indeed I don’t.”
Ronald clapped his hands ecstatically.
“You are a brick, Winnie, a real trump! Charley, they have splendid guinea-fowls at Farmer Johnson’s. We could go and talk to him about it to-morrow after school. Oh, won’t it be jolly? I am glad you thought of it, Phil. You shall have some eggs by-and-by, and so shall Winnie. It’s just first-rate!”
The children rose to go; all the faces were very bright.
“Shall you be able to come again, Miss Winnie?” asked Phil wistfully; “it is so nice to see you sometimes.”
“I’ll come if I can,” answered the child slowly; “only I’m not sure,—I think sometimes—”
“We’re afraid sometimes she won’t be able to get out much, now that the summer is gone,” broke in Charley, with almost nervous haste; “but we’ll come to see you, Phil, Ronald and I, so don’t look blue.”
“Thank you, Mr. Charley, thank you kindly. Good-bye, Miss Winnie.”
“Good-bye, Phil.”
The two children smiled into each other’s eyes. It was the last look they ever exchanged on earth.
