lways found this
wise prescription of the doctor's a very difficult one.

Bessie always called the hour before breakfast her "golden hour," and by
her father's advice she devoted it to some useful reading or study. In a
busy house like the Lamberts', where every one put his or her shoulder
to the wheel, it was not easy to secure opportunity for quiet reading or
self-improvement. There was always work to be done; long walks to be
taken; the constant interruption of the two school-girls; Ella's
practicing to overlook; Katie's French verbs to hear; besides household
tasks of all kinds. In the evenings the girls played and sung to please
their father, who delighted in music; sometimes, but not often, their
mother read aloud to them while they worked. It was against the family
rules for one to retire into a corner with a book. In such a case the
unfortunate student was hunted out, teased, pursued with questions,
pelted with home witticisms, until she was glad to close her book and
take up her needlework, for the Lamberts were brisk talkers, and their
tongues were never silent until they were asleep, and then they talked
in their dreams.

When Bessie rose early, as usual, the morning after her arrival at The
Grange, she sat down by the open window, and wrote a long letter to her
mother and a little note to Hatty. It was an exquisite morning; the
thrushes and blackbirds, the merle and the mavis of the old English
poets, were singing as though their little throats would burst with the
melody, and a pair of finches in the acacia were doing their best to
swell the concert; the garden looked so sunny and quiet, and such a
sweet breath of newly made hay came in at the open window that Bessie at
last laid down her pen. The household was stirring, but the family would
not be down for half an hour, so the maid had informed her when she
brought Bessie the morning cup of tea. Bessie had looked rather
longingly at the pretty teapot, but her father had been so strong in his
denunciations against slow poison, as he called it, imbibed on waking,
that she would not yield to the temptation of tasting it, and begged for
a glass of milk instead. This the maid promised to bring every morning,
and as Bessie ate the bread and butter and sipped the sweet country
milk, yellow with cream, she thought how much good it would do Hatty.
Then she put on her hat and went softly downstairs, and finding a side
door open, went out into the garden.

She tho