CHAPTER I

Thoughtless

"SHE'S a good old soul in her way; but we are not infants in the nursery, and will manage a jolly sight better without her."

"And we'll have a good fling while we are about it, I say. For she said she would be back in a week."

"I shall do my best to keep order at mealtimes, of course; but I shan't be hard on you the rest of the day. Now, Doodle-doo, leave that cushion alone. Remember what the last one did."

It was Sunday afternoon, and we were all enjoying ourselves in the schoolroom upstairs. Dinner was over; there was a deluge of rain coming down; and the blazing fire and a bag of chestnuts were keeping us busy. It is needless to say that we were not sitting up in chairs in the orthodox fashion. Pat, the eldest of us, in his eighteenth year, was reposing full length on our shabby old couch; Taters was astride on one end of it; Honey was seated on the coal-scuttle, her feet inside the fender; and Thunder and I were lying flat on the hearthrug; whilst Doodle-doo was changing his position every minute, and trying to make every one else do the same.

Lest our names should be thought queer ones, I should explain that they were of our own coining; our baptismal ones were too respectable to find favour in our eyes. I went by the brief synonym of "Li," or "Lightning," as Thunder and I invariably did things together; and I certainly outdid them all in swiftness of thought and action.

[Illustration: I BROUGHT DOWN THE TABLECLOTH TO THE GROUND.]

We had just recovered from scarlet fever; our parents were abroad, and our good old German governess had suddenly been summoned home to a dying mother. Nurse was with us, of course; but Pixie, a delicate little fellow of six, who had fared the worst of us all in the fever, took up much of her time and attention, and we elder ones had long ago escaped and defiee her rule.

"Throw us another nut," Pat demanded.

I threw, aiming with such exact precision at his nose, that with a yell he sprang up and gave chase to me round the table. Round and round we spun, until I brought down the table-cloth to the ground, and with it a china flower-pot of mignonette.

That sobered us, and we took up our former position again, Honey remarking, "I'm sure we ought to be better employed on Sunday afternoon than making such a row. Why don't some of you get a book to read?"

"I've read all the Sunday books again and again," I said with a sigh, for books were my delight.

"No one can keep pace with Li," observed Taters thoughtfully, as she left her seat to put another chestnut on the bars; "why don't you start reading the Bible? That would take you a few Sundays to get through."

I stared at her. "The Bible! Why, no one reads that for the sake of reading."

"What's the good of it, then?" demanded Taters, who was nothing if she was not argumentative.

"To preach from, of course," put in Doodle-doo; "and if I had the chance, I wouldn't give such rotten sermons out of it as we heard this morning."

"Well, come on; give us a sermon, if you are so good at it. We'll give you a chance, and a text too. Find him one, Li; there's a Bible on the bookshelf."

I found the Bible that Pat indicated, opened it in a hurry, and called out the first words that met my eye—"'One thing thou lackest.'"

Honey looked up gravely and sweetly. "You're not to make fun, Doodle-doo," she said.

Doodle-doo held himself erect, and ruffled his cock's-comb, as we called it, in the importance of his position.

"Ahem!" he began. "My sermon will be brief, but to the point. Pat, one thing thou lackest—'tis control of thy beastly temper. Honey, one thing thou lackest—'tis female tidiness. Taters, one thing thou lackest—'tis the knowledge that thou art an ignoramus. Thunder, one thing thou lackest—'tis a light and contented spirit. Lightning, one thing thou lackest—'tis patient perseverance."

"And, Doodle-doo, one thing thou lackest," I put in hastily—"'tis the art of keeping thy cackling voice still."

[Illustration]

"Well, young people, what is the discussion?"

We turned round, and found that Miss Moffat from next door had quietly opened the door and come in amongst us. She was a little old maid whom we all loved. All through our illness she had been in and out, changing her dress most carefully each time to avoid spreading the infection. Books and fruit had been plentifully supplied, and we were not surprised to see her hands full of books and papers now.

[Illustration]

"A little Sunday reading, my dears. I thought you might be in want of some. Are you telling each other of your faults, may I ask?"

"Doodle-doo is trying to preach," Tater said, her snub nose well in the air; "but his crows, like those of his namesake, are about nothing at all."

"And what is the subject?"

"'One thing thou lackest,' was the text I gave him," I said glibly. "Don't look so shocked, Miss Moffat; we weren't making fun of it."

"It is a solemn verse to take up so lightly," said our friend gravely. "Do you know the occasion of our Lord's saying those words?"

"Yes. Don't preach to us, there's a good soul;" and Pat threw up his long arms and stretched himself with a terrific yawn.

"I am on my way to read to a blind woman," said Miss Moffitt briskly; "there are your books."

Then looking over her spectacles at us in her quaint, sweet way, she said—

"There is 'one thing lacking' with each one of you boys and girls. Try and find it out for yourselves, and let me know when you succeed in getting it. I should not like to see any of you one day 'weighed in the balances and found wanting.'"

And then she left us.

There was silence for a few minutes; we were busy distributing the literature which had been brought us.

Then Thunder observed, knitting his black brows into a heavier frown than usual—

"I shouldn't have thought little Moffat was a religious person; but you can never see through a woman—they're always up to artful dodges."

"She isn't religious," Doodle-doo said; "she only wanted to add force to my little preach."

"Shut up," said Pat, giving a kick at him as he passed the sofa; "my 'beastly temper' won't stand a word more from you."

"She's not a goody person, nor a prig," argued Taters, "so she can't be religious; and her face is as round and ruddy as an apple."

"What is a religious person?" I asked. "I don't mean a hypocrite, but a real true one. What do they believe that we don't believe? Why should it be such an awfully canty thing to be good?"

"Are you going to try it, Li?"

"I sometimes think," said Honey meditatively, as she deliberately poked her slippered foot into the red-hot embers and stirred them into a blaze, "that after all 'we' may be the hypocrites. What did we kneel down and pray for in church this morning?—'Grant that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life.' We haven't the smallest intention of doing it."

"Don't talk rot!" was Pat's response to this.

And, turning to our books, we dropped the subject.