Magnum Bonum

we sit upon

hepherds feed

rivers, by

ds sing madri

Mary Ogilvie, when she had sat down for her fi

did in the spli

u are teaching her to see Sycora

I ever see her! Do

ons, who had an immense regard for her husb

necessary to

heer her in her present life, which must be the greatest possible contrast to her former one.

em. Indeed I should not be at li

nminster? You look enlivened

That one woman has made more difference to t

, at any rate, pup

en down by him. When he refused to have it forced upon him that study was not the thing at Kenminster, they found the only way to make him know his place was to keep theirs, and some of them have really

ething of th

u d

that Arthur knows his lessons. So troublesome you know; but since that Mrs. Joseph Brownlow has come, she helps her boys so with their home-work that the oth

s or exercises; they only have grammar to learn and construing to prepare, and all my conc

r children anything, for she was always tramping all over the country with them at all hours of the day and night. She has met he

veils, and all the rest of it, at Ch

nics, alone with her children-no party nor anything. I could not make out whether the offence consis

he has the reputation o

y, do you know, she sometimes is up and out with her children before six o'clock in the morning; and then Co

these. To go out in the cool of the morning,

st conform to one'

n for being c

r Carey was spoken of. I am afraid she can hardly

as absurd as th

have you se

e calling on her to ask whether her boy should learn German." And Da

thin to lead the brother and sister out immediately after dinner, looking first into the play-fields, where

ll for it yet, and only take their turn in watching-out by compulsion.

upwards though the wood, with one large oak-tree standing alone in the centre, and behold! on the grass below sat or lay a company-Mrs. Joseph Brownlow in the midst, under the obnoxious mushroom-hat, reading aloud. Radiating from her were five boys, the biggest of all on his back, with his hat over his eyes, fast asleep; another cross-legged, with a basket between his knees, dividing his attention between it and the book; two more lying frog-like, with elbows on the ground, feet erected behind them, chin in hand, devouring the narrative with their eyes; the fifth wriggling restlessly about, evidently in search of op

Court here," said

too hot for indoors, and I am r

ge audien

quite sure whether it is fact

s for breaking up the

we listen!" sa

selves, boys; we've

f risen; Robin lay still snoring, and Joe had retreated into th

d them. Luckily the reading had just come to the history of the "Do as You Likes," and the interview between the last of the race and M. Du Chaillu diverted him beyond measure. He laughed so much over the poor fellow's abortive attempt to say "Am I not a man and a

e Do as You Like

ld murmur of "Am I not a man and a brother?" then tumbling head over heels, half in ecstasy

nd delivered himself of a waking howl; then suddenly becoming conscious of Mr. Ogilvie, h

his master; "it was hardly fair to

indeed the sun was entirely down and the dew almost falling, so that th

-nets, and had a distribution of pill-boxes and bottles, in some of which were caterpillars intended to live, in others butterflies dead (or dying, it may be feared) o

rs you are!" s

m," answered A

had taken his hand. "Oh, it is such a beauty! We h

said her mother; "but our museum is

which formed the lowest story of the tower. It was partaken of standing, or sitting at case on the window-seats, a form or two, an old carved chair, or on the stairs, the children ascending them after their meal, and after securing in their own fashion

ll be busy?

raid we are not very

chrysalids. So when Mary came up the hill at half-past ten the next morning, she was the less surprised to find these two only just beginning br

d enjoy themselves. "We are very late," she added, "but these late walks make the lit

ed out to the children how they were to occupy themselves under Janet's charge

s were arranged in the two sides of the bay window, with light chairs and small writing-tables, each with its glass of flowers; the piano stood across the arc, shutting off these windows into almost a separate room; low book-cases, with chiffonier cupboards and marble tops, ran round the

out in panels, and a growth of frescoes of bulrushes, ivy, and leaves of all kinds was beginning to overspread them, while on a nearer inspection the leaves proved to be fast b

ed of putting those creatures there as a trial to

hose who don't like creeping thing

take to me more than I take to th

ood thing?" said

I always used to be told I didn't try to make small talk, and I can do it less tha

ut you say that you were

view to Joe's popularity, and we haven't any patients to think of now.

to let them de

they see of the

hame,

can't help it! It just makes me mad to be worried or tied down," and she pushed back her hair

ary's quiet hand to set it to rights; "it's just an emblem of all the rest of it; I wouldn't wear it another day, but that I'm afraid of Ellen and Robert, and it perfectly drives me wild.

old her she could well guess it was

at, it wouldn't be near so bad as long as one could see the dear old shore

y, yearning gesture into the vacant space, s

re's a haven

g first, and when people want to begin about it, they get so conventional, a

oor c

ith me, because I'm tell

anet opened the door, saying, "

off, while Janet came forward to the

e Water-Colour Exhib

took me one Satu

you Nita Ray's picture. I want so m

ess of an exile about her native country. As a governess in her school-room, Miss Ogilvie had had little more than a key-hole view of all these things; but then what she

tcher and baker!" she said. "No

d to her mother about some picture of last year, and sat down to her drawing, while the conversation on pictures and books continued in animated style.

h them, sitting down under a tree whence the murmured sounds of repetition could be heard, lasting about twenty minutes between the two, and then she returned, the

sted their mother. "If Jock does not stay in the pla

l come then. I invit

rving that she must go and see that the children did

er if he did act o

l in me to have asked him, considering that I

ara's invitation. Do you know, Carey, h

t, like Botto

ve made the mothers see to their boys' pr

nd had been more stifled than wanting in him. Nobody had ever put things to him by the right end, and when he once let me do it for him, it was quite a revelation, and he has been so happy and prosperous that he hardly knows himself. Poor boy, there is something very honest and true about him, and so affectionate! He is a little like his uncle, a

't you s

nkey brain. Who would have thought of his getting the whole set to dress up as nigger sin

't much har

ighty and solemn dinner party! All the grandees, the county people (this in a deep and awful voice), sitting up in their chignons of state, in the awful pause during the dishing-up, when these five little wretches, in finery filched from the rag bag, appear on the smooth lawn, mown and trimmed to the last extent for the occa

leedle,

at's

d she d

sair

that ke

she wa

o her

f-past

, and said, 'I thought you would like to have the ladies amused, Uncle Robert.' He did box his ears then-small blame to him, I must say. I could stand that better than the jaw E

that

to be torn, or splashed, or something, and we have shrieks and lamentations, and accusations of Jock and Joe, amid floods of tears; and Jessie comes to the resc

ture of pity, reproof, and amusement, and

e your friends by having all t

fter their fathers' only sister, who seems to have been an equal darling to both. We would have avoided Robert,

a thoroughly i

a formality in Lucas that would never fit that skipjack of a boy. He got called Jock as a nickname, and now he will abide by it. But

house door to welcome Mr. Ogilvie at the gate, and lead him in in triumph, attended by h

they have been used to b

d he might take advantage of her invitation; he had been thinking whether to begin a school museum would not be a very good thing for the boys, and se

d by one of those mysterious likings that her kind are apt to take, held her grey head to Mr

an ado

ng to the little hall below, and fitted with presses and shelves, belonging to the store-room of the former thrifty inhabitant

at everything left there after twelve o'clock on Saturday was, as Babie's lit

h entertained by the simplicity with which the little mai

are inex-o-rable. They threw away my snail shell that a

e baker's Pincher ate it up; but I did find my turtle-dove's egg in the ash-heap, and d

nderful how valuable things becom

Bobus's, which was botany, was the neatest and most systematic. Mary thought at first that it did not suit him; but she soon saw

d see to them,

cts when I have done with

have surpassed thee'

e was certainly a wonderful winning way about her-there was a simplicity of manner almost like that of Babie herself, and yet the cleverness of a

e children, she played so lightly, there were depths of sorrow that might

"he found it;" and these she would not allow to be passed over, but showed fondly

rn privileges of small girls, after having much amused him by doing the honours o

he never touched clay now, and there was nothing worth seeing; but it was in vain; Babie had her way; and they mounted to the highest

te; a large house, "bosomed high in tufted trees;" a church-tower and spire, nestled on the hill-side, up to the steep grey hill with the tall land-mark tower, closing in the horizon-altogether, as Carey said, a thorough "allegro" landscape, even to "the tanned haycock in the mead." But the summer sun made the place dazzling and almost uninhabitable, and the visitors, turning from the g