Pine Needles Part 14

"Well," said Maggie, as Meredith paused, "I should think somebody ought to go to those people!"

"Hopeless work," said Flora, st.i.tching away at her worsted.

"No, it is not hopeless work," answered her brother. "As you would soon see, if all the Churches had the matter at heart like Pastor Harms and his Hermannsburg."

"Everybody cannot give himself up to such business," said Flora glancing at him.

"Everybody ought."

"O Ditto!" cried Maggie, "do you think _everybody_ ought to go to Africa?"

"Yes," said Flora; "that is just about what he thinks."

"No, Maggie," said Meredith, "neither to Africa nor to other heathen parts; not everybody. But everybody can give himself up to the work of the kingdom, even if he stays at home. Most people must stay at home."

"I don't understand," said Maggie with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Don't you remember--'Seek ye _first_ the kingdom of G.o.d;'--that's all I mean."

"'First!'" Flora echoed.

"_How_ 'first,' Ditto?"

"Before everything else. The words mean that, if they mean anything."

"How before everything else?"

"See, Maggie. Suppose you and I have"----

"Now, Ditto, stop!" said his sister. "I do not want to hear any of that stuff. What is it to Maggie? And Essie and I do not care about it."

"And there comes Fenton," added Esther, springing up to go and meet him.

For Fenton it was, bounding up the bank at their left.

Fenton was grown a good deal since our last sight of him; otherwise not much changed. A handsome boy, with a good figure and a bright eye, and also the old, somewhat supercilious upper lip. But he was glad to get home, and greeted the party cordially enough; then, however, began to criticise.

"What are you all doing loafing here?" He had sat down on the bank with the rest, and looked from one to another.

"We do not use your elegant expression," said Flora; "partly perhaps because we are not wont to indulge ourselves in that particular amus.e.m.e.nt."

"What _are_ you doing?"

"You do not see anything to engage our attention in what at present offers itself to yours," Meredith remarked.

"Nothing offers itself to my attention," replied Fenton. "I don't see anything except our old cart. Anything to eat in it?"

"There is no pie left," said Esther, "for I gave the last of it to Fairbairn; and Flora drank up all the cream. There's some sugar in the sugar-bowl."

Fenton went to get some lumps of sugar, and then stood looking down at the party.

"Aren't you going home to dinner?" said he. "I tell you, I'm raging."

"Four o'clock," said Meredith, looking at his watch. "Just the pretty time of day coming now."

"It'll be dinner-time by the time you get the cart home and the girls get dressed. What did you come out here so far for? I haven't had a respectable dinner for six months. I am going to have some wine to-day, if the governor _is_ away."

"Governor!" cried Esther. "What a vulgar expression for Fenton Candlish to use!"

"Wine!" exclaimed Maggie. "You can't have any wine, Fenton; we don't drink wine any more in _this_ house."

"What's the matter!"

"The matter is, papa has emptied his wine-cellar," said Esther in a rather aggrieved tone.

"Drunk it all up?"

"No, no; sent it off and sold it."

"What was the matter with it!"

"Why, I tell you," said Esther, "it is thought improper for good people to drink wine."

Fenton's face was rather funny to see, there was such a blank dismay in it.

"And did mamma give in to that?"

"I don't know what mamma thought," said Esther; "but papa sold the wine; and our dinner-table does not have its pretty coloured gla.s.ses any more."

Fenton uttered a smothered exclamation which I am afraid would have shocked his sisters.

"I don't see what _you_ want with wine, Fenton," said Maggie; "papa never let you have it."

"Mamma did though," said Fenton. "That's the good of having two parents.

If one is crochety perhaps the other will be straight. Well, _I'm_ not going to live if I can't live like a gentleman. I shall send to Forbes to send me some wine."

His sisters burst out into horrified exclamations and expostulations.

"Papa'll see it in the bill," said Esther, "and he'll be very angry."

"Uncle Eden is coming," said Maggie, "and it will be no use. He'd throw it into the river."

"Uncle Eden coming?"

The girls nodded.

"If I had known that _I_ wouldn't have come!" said Fenton looking very dark.

"I'd think better of it if I were you," remarked Meredith quietly.