This household happiness did not come all at once,
but John and Meg had found the key to it, and each
year of married life taught them how to use it, unlocking
the treasuries of real home love and mutual helpfulness,
which the poorest may possess, and the richest cannot
buy. This is the sort of shelf on which young
wives and mothers may consent to be laid, safe from
the restless fret and fever of the world, finding
loyal lovers in the little sons and daughters who
cling to them, undaunted by sorrow, poverty, or age,
walking side by side, through fair and stormy weather,
with a faithful friend, who is, in the true sense
of the good old Saxon word, the ‘house-band’,
and learning, as Meg learned, that a woman’s
happiest kingdom is home, her highest honor the art
of ruling it not as a queen, but as a wise wife and
mother.
LAZY LAURENCE
Laurie went to Nice intending to stay a week, and
remained a month. He was tired of wandering
about alone, and Amy’s familiar presence seemed
to give a homelike charm to the foreign scenes in
which she bore a part. He rather missed the
‘petting’ he used to receive, and enjoyed
a taste of it again, for no attentions, however flattering,
from strangers, were half so pleasant as the sisterly
adoration of the girls at home. Amy never would
pet him like the others, but she was very glad to
see him now, and quite clung to him, feeling that he
was the representative of the dear family for whom
she longed more than she would confess. They
naturally took comfort in each other’s society
and were much together, riding, walking, dancing,
or dawdling, for at Nice no one can be very industrious
during the gay season. But, while apparently
amusing themselves in the most careless fashion, they
were half-consciously making discoveries and forming
opinions about each other. Amy rose daily in
the estimation of her friend, but he sank in hers,
and each felt the truth before a word was spoken.
Amy tried to please, and succeeded, for she was grateful
for the many pleasures he gave her, and repaid him
with the little services to which womanly women know
how to lend an indescribable charm. Laurie made
no effort of any kind, but just let himself drift
along as comfortably as possible, trying to forget,
and feeling that all women owed him a kind word because
one had been cold to him. It cost him no effort
to be generous, and he would have given Amy all the
trinkets in Nice if she would have taken them, but
at the same time he felt that he could not change
the opinion she was forming of him, and he rather
dreaded the keen blue eyes that seemed to watch him
with such half-sorrowful, half-scornful surprise.
“All the rest have gone to Monaco for the day.
I preferred to stay at home and write letters.
They are done now, and I am going to Valrosa to sketch,
will you come?” said Amy, as she joined Laurie
one lovely day when he lounged in as usual, about
noon.
