bove her. But with Will it
might be more broadly interpreted into leave for frequent raids over
fences and through bars for butterflies and beetles, or any luckless
rover that strayed along. So she explained to her son in this wise:--

"Will, dear, remember that your grandmamma is coming for you, and you
must not soil or tear your clothes by running about. Play quietly in
the shade. The time will not be long now."

"Yes, mum."

Such implicit obedience as this "Yes, mum" implied! In fact, there was
the promise in it of every one of the cardinal virtues.

The two children then went away through the long hall, whose doors
stood wide open in the warm summer afternoon, and Will, dragging along
the slower-footed Emily, hurried on to the elm tree.

"Don't pull so, Will; I shall drop my basket, and my spool and
thimble will roll away."

"What do you want to bother with work for this beautiful afternoon?"
inquired Will, slackening his pace.

"I promised mamma I would try and finish it this week," said Emily,
"and I like to keep my word."

"I thought the machine sewed."

"So it does; but mamma says I must learn just the same as if there
were no machines."

"Well, I'm glad I'm not a girl, to sit pricking my fingers, and
jabbing needles in and out all day."

Patience was not one of Will's virtues.

How lovely it was out under the elm! The sweet-scented grass was warm
with the afternoon sun, and musical with the chirp and hum of its
insect homes. The bees fluttered in and out over mamma's rose garden,
and all the air was filled with the delicate fragrance of the roses.

Emily, seated on the great gnarled elm roots, drank in all the sweet
scents and sounds, her forgotten work-basket lying overturned in the
grass before her. Will spread himself out at full length on the
ground, and kept his eyes open for chippers and spiders, and all the
busy little things that crept, or leaped, or flitted around him. Now
and then the afternoon hush was broken by the faintly tinkling bells
of a horse-car turning some distant corner, the rumbling of a heavy
team going over the dusty turnpike, or the voices of the belfry clocks
calling the hour to each other from the steeples of the neighboring
city.

Master Will, however, soon became tired of this quiet. He scrambled
up, and wandering away into the rose garden, lifted caressingly to his
cheek the beautiful pink blossoms which leaned towards him from amid
the green leaves. He was look