o improve under the healthful influences of
Oakvale, living almost wholly in the fresh open air, perfumed with
mignonette and other sweet summer flowers, sitting with Lucy under the
trees before Mrs. Browne's house, or in her shady verandah, where,
even on the warmest day, there was a breeze to cool the sultry air.
Lucy would read to her, sometimes some of Longfellow's simpler poems,
out of one of her prize-books, and sometimes out of more juvenile
story-books brought down for Amy's benefit, who was never tired of
hearing her favourites read over and over again, to which she would
listen with an abstracted, thoughtful expression, as if she were
interpreting the story in a spiritual fashion of her own. "Heaven is
about us in our infancy," says the poet; and it is nearer to some
children, by the grace of God, than older people often imagine.

When Lucy wanted to read to herself, Amy would amuse herself quietly
for hours, dressing her dolls, and looking over the illustrations in
her story-books, supplying the story from memory. Lucy conscientiously
kept up her practising on Mrs. Browne's piano, and always ended by
playing and singing some hymns for Amy, who was passionately fond of
music, and loved to try to sing too, with her sweet, feeble voice.

As Mrs. Browne, having but one servant, had a great deal to do
herself, Lucy volunteered to assist her a little. She had always been
accustomed to perform some household tasks at home, and it was quite
an amusement to her and Amy, bringing back old days of her childhood,
to vary their mornings by shelling the peas for dinner, or, when it
was not too warm, picking the fruit for Mrs. Browne's preserves. So
pleasant did Lucy find it, that she thought her city cousins really
missed a good deal of enjoyment, in never, by any chance, employing
themselves in anything of the kind, even when the busy servants were
really over-worked. Indeed it is somewhat surprising that domestics go
on as contentedly as they do in their constant treadmill of labour,
often too much for their strength, when so many healthy members of the
families for whose benefit they toil spend so large a portion of their
time in luxurious idleness, or in mere pleasure-seeking.

In the fresh, cool morning, after their early breakfast, and in the
evening, when the heat of the day was over, Lucy and Amy always went
for a short ramble, climbing a little way up one of the hill-paths, or
wandering by the side of the stream