THE HOUSE OF HAPPY HOURS 



95 



"Say there !" sung Billy's Toice from be- 

 hind her, ''I'll come over tomorrow, and 

 help yon whitewash yonr fence if yon 

 want me to.'^ 



Chapter TV. 

 As the months went on, the small house 

 beneath the oaks where the mocking-birds 

 nested and sung grew more lovely within 

 and without. Xo signs of dilapidation 

 were to be seen anywhere. Quick-growing 

 vines draped the low veranda, and close 

 up in a narrow bed imder the eves grew 

 the ferns transplanted from the woods. 

 Simply constructed window boxes were 

 running over with late planted petunias 

 and Dusty Miller, and all between the 

 house and the front fence stretched a green 

 carpet of native Bermuda grass, which the 

 young Warings at their mother's instiga- 

 tion jealously guarded from stray bits of 

 waste. 



Mrs. Waring had lent herself most will- 

 ingly to every suggestion of good, absorb- 

 ing into the very marrow of her being, 

 influences which came to her from every 

 source, that she might radiate them in 

 turn to the growing young experiences 

 which she was helping to mould. In this 

 self forgetful life, apart with her home 

 ties, all unknown to herself, she was grow- 

 ing and broadening in a way which would 

 once have been impossible to her. The 

 family relations became daily closer and 

 more sweet, and Xed's restlessness bade 

 fair to vanish entirely, under the charm 

 of his mother's companionship. That 

 first thoughtful ramble in Magnolia Glen 

 was followed by many another, and in 

 wooing nature to become as a sweetheart 

 to her children, Mrs. Waring's own eyes 

 were opened to see many a silent message 

 shining from bough and blossom, and her 

 ears were quickened to catch the whisper 

 that rustled through the leaves or thrilled 

 through song of thrush and bluebird. She 

 found that there were "sermons in stones, 

 books in the running brooks, and good in 

 everything". 



At home, undpr the evening lamp, 

 father, mother and little ones were united 



in their interest in a short historical 

 course ; Mr. Waring had never felt that he 

 had the time for such a thing before, and 

 his wife had not cared to take it up alone, 

 but now there were so few outside de- 

 mands that they were able to enter into 

 it zestfully, finding it a dear delight to put 

 their reading into the simple words the 

 younger children could understand, and 

 reaping rich reward in the intense interest 

 they manifested by their intelligent ques- 

 tions, and comments. 



Mr. Waring went forth from this sweet 

 home life, strengthened for work, and 

 braver to endure the hours of waiting 

 which are harder than toil, and Edna 

 Waring found her days too full for her 

 to indulge in vain regrets and fruitless 

 longings for a different environment. 

 Sometimes, letters came to her from her 

 old home, and only half concealed between 

 the lines, she read the pity her friends 

 felt for her, living in such an inconspicu- 

 ous sphere in a dingy little manufacturing 

 town. She only smiled to herself, for she 

 had found something in Wimbledon 

 which no amount of delightful social in- 

 tercourse could equal in value — that ex- 

 quisite intimacy with her own home circle, 

 an understanding quickened to respond to 

 nature's benign influence, and a more 

 tender conception of her relations to her 

 neighbor. The children who always found 

 a welcome at the House of Happy Hours 

 were gradually drawing their mothers 

 within the charm which radiated from 

 it, and constant opportunities offered for 

 Mrs. Waring to do or say some kindly, un- 

 obtrusive thing, which made hearts glow 

 with pleasure, or which sowed a thought to 

 bear fruit later in kind. They were the 

 laboring class — those neighbors of hers- — 

 and not at all the people whom she would 

 have chosen to make her home among, if 

 things had been different, but her policy 

 of making the best of things extended to 

 them, and she found that, after all, they 

 were not so different from their more for- 

 tunate brothers and sisters. 



(To he continued. J 



