CHAPTER VI.
A PIECE OF MISCHIEF.
THE next day I found that the lesson of work was to be omitted. Little Miss Lizzie Baker came to spend the day with my young mistress, who was, therefore, excused from performing her tasks; which, I could not help imagining, would be felt quite as great a relief by the teacher as by the pupil.
I was not, however, to be left in complete idleness. Mrs. Ellerslie entered the sitting-room in which the work-box of her daughter was kept. She was dressed in her bonnet and shawl; and seeing me close at hand, sticking in Lily’s piece of work, she threaded me with a piece of dark silk, and mended a small hole in her glove. There was a great sound over head, as of little feet running about, and now and then a fretful cry from the baby. The lady rose and opened the door, and then I could plainly distinguish a voice speaking from an upper room in the house.
“Indeed, Miss Lily, I shall never get the child to sleep if you make such a constant noise. You’ve woke her up these three times already!”
“Lily! Lily!” called her mother at the foot of the stairs. Whether her call was heard by the little lady I know not, it certainly was not answered, and Mrs. Ellerslie had walked half-way up to the nursery before I heard the servant exclaiming in a sharp tone, “Now do you be quiet, Miss Lily; don’t you hear that mistress is calling you?”
“You had better come to the drawing-room, my darlings,” called the gentle mother, “and then nurse can put poor baby to sleep. I am obliged to go out to make purchases, and to execute commissions for my sister; but I am sure that you will be good and happy while I am away; and do not be too noisy, my pets.”
So Lily and Lizzie Baker, a plump, dark-eyed little girl, came into the room, and seated themselves on an ottoman, near the table on which my work-box was placed. Eddy followed, jumping step by step down the stairs, and trotting up to his sister, said, “Lily, won’t you let me play with you?”
“Oh, we don’t want you here,” was the reply; “we are going to have a quiet chat together. Just you amuse yourself, and don’t trouble us.”
The little fellow turned dolefully away, went up to the window, and flattened his nose against the pane, looking after his mother as she crossed the street; soiled his finger by drawing lines across the glass which he had dimmed with his breath; then, tired of that diversion, tried to pull off the little twists of wool which formed the fringe of the curtain; and then suddenly making up to the table, laid his exploring hand on the work-box.
“There now, Eddy, you tormenting boy, just take your hands off,” cried Lily, turning round just in time to prevent its contents being scattered on the floor. She roughly snatched the box from the child, and giving him something very much like a shake, sent him half crying to another end of the room.
“He is the most mischievous little monkey,” she said to her companion; “would you believe it, he pulled off the wig of my new doll!”
“I think that brothers are great torments,” observed Lizzie.
“Oh, not such brothers as George,” replied Lily; “he is always like sunshine in the house. I am so glad that he is coming from school. I have been counting the days to the holidays.”
“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.
Glancing up at the thermometer, I could see that the little silver ball had disappeared; but I was at a loss to account for Eddy’s movements now, as, half-stretched on the carpet, leaning on one elbow, he seemed to be attempting to pick up something which eluded his grasp, pouncing down his hand now here, now there, and laughing to himself merrily all the while.
“I think it’s alive,” he said softly; “how funnily it runs about when I try to get hold of it!” and opening his mouth, he stooped closer to the ground, as though to draw up with his lips the something which always slipped from his fingers. He was startled by a frightened exclamation from his mother, who at this moment entered the room.
“Eddy, my child! oh, don’t touch that! it’s quicksilver—poison—it might kill you! Oh, what a mercy that I came just in time!” and weary, agitated, and alarmed, the poor lady drew him close to her bosom and wept.
“Mamma!” exclaimed the child, frightened at her tears, “I didn’t mean—I didn’t know—it looked so funny; I never will do so any more!”
“Oh, Lily, Lily!” cried Mrs. Ellerslie, with something of bitterness in her tone, as both the little girls hurried to her side, “could you not have looked a little after your brother? If I had returned but one minute later your carelessness might have cost the life of my child!”