36 THE HOME OF A NATURALIST. 



When any of the children were suflFering from 

 childish ailments they thought the trouble less when 

 they "were laid on their mother's bed, and later they 

 comforted their maturer minds and bodies in the 

 same way. 



It was a vast couch indeed, and when the curtains 

 were drawn its vaulted roof seemed peopled by ghosts. 

 But all day the drapery was put back, and any one 

 who pleased might sit or recline thereon. Even when 

 the mother was too ailing to leave her bed, some one 

 or other found excuse for being there too. 



A little table stood beside the bed on which lay her 

 knitting, pen and ink, Bible, Keble's " Christian Year," 

 and, alas, too often numerous medicine bottles. 



We have stood times out of number by that bed- 

 side in her moments of extreme suffering; but even 

 when pain was keenest we never heard her murmur 

 against what God had seen fit to permit her to endure. 

 And when the agony abated she was always ready to 

 smile at us again. Her submission was the more 

 remarkable because she was intolerant of physical 

 pain, and she was by nature impulsive and full of 

 energy. 



When the old home-band was scattered, and the 

 " household gods " were following the children's 

 example, one of us — impulsive and energetic like 

 the mother — took the old tent-bed (infirm on its 

 legs, worm-eaten throughout) to pieces, piled its dis- 

 membered bones together on a spot where the children 

 had been wont to play, and set fire to them ! 



