did. May God take care of them when we can do it no more!

The week had rolled by,--weeks roll by so fast!--and it was again Sunday, the last Sunday at the glen, and just such another as before: calm, still, sunshiny; nothing but peace on earth and sky. Peace! when far away beyond the circle of mountains within which parents and children were enjoying such innocent pleasures, such deep repose, there was going on, for other parents and children, the terrible siege of Paris. Week by week, and day by day, the Germans were closing in round the doomed city, making ready to destroy by fire, or sword, or famine,--all sent by man’s hand, not God’s,--hundreds, thousands of innocent enemies. Truly, heaven will have been well filled, and earth well emptied during the year 1870.

What a glorious summer it was, as to weather, will long be remembered in Scotland. Even up to this Sunday, the 2d of October, the air was balmy and warm as June. Everybody gathered outside on the terrace, including the forlorn salmon-fishers, whose last hope was now extinguished; for the patient gentleman, and Sunny’s papa, too, were to leave next morning. And the fish jumped up in the glassy loch, livelier than ever, as if they were having a special jubilee in honour of their foe’s departure.

He sat resigned and cheerful, smoking his cigar, and protesting that, with all his piscatory disappointments, this was the loveliest place he had ever been in, and that he had spent the pleasantest of holidays! There he was left to enjoy his last bit of the mountains and loch in quiet content, while everybody else went to church.

Even Little Sunshine. For her mamma and papa had taken counsel together whether it was not possible for her to be good there, so as at least to be no hindrance to other people’s going, which was as much as could be expected for so small a child. Papa doubted this, but mamma pleaded for her little girl, and promised to keep her good if possible. She herself had a great desire that the first time ever Sunny went to church should be in this place.

So they had a talk together, mamma and Sunny, in which mamma explained that Sunny might go to church, as Maurice and Eddie did, if she would sit quite quiet, as she did at prayers, and promise not to speak one word, as nobody ever spoke in church excepting the minister. She promised, this little girl who has such a curious feeling about keeping a promise, and allowed herself to be dressed without murmuring--nay, with a sort of dignified pride--to “go to church.” She even condescended to have her gloves put on, always a severe trial; and never was there a neater little figure, all in white from top to toe, with a white straw hat, as simple as possible, and the yellow curls tumbling down from under it. As she put her little hand in her mamma’s and they two started together, somewhat in advance of the rest, for it was a long half-mile for such baby feet, her mamma involuntarily thought of a verse in a poem she learnt when she herself was a little girl:

“Thy dress was like the lilies, And thy heart was pure as they; One of God’s holy angels Did walk with me that day.”

Only Sunny was not an angel, but an ordinary little girl. A good little girl generally, but capable of being naughty sometimes. She will have to try hard to be good every day of her life, as we all have. Still, with her sweet, grave face, and her soft, pretty ways, there was something of the angel about her this day.

Her mamma tried to make her understand, in a dim way, what “church” meant,--that it was saying “thank you” to God, as mamma did continually; especially for His giving her her little daughter. How He lived up in the sky, and nobody saw Him, but He saw everybody; how He loved Little Sunshine, just as her papa and mamma loved her, and was glad when she was good, and grieved when she was naughty. This was all the child could possibly take in, and even thus much was doubtful; but she listened, seeming as if she comprehended a small fragment of the great mystery which even we parents understand so little. Except that when we look at our children, and feel how dearly we love them, how much we would both do and sacrifice for them, how if we have to punish them it is never in anger but in anguish and pain, suffering twice as much ourselves the while,--then we can faintly understand how He who put such love into us, must Himself love infinitely more, and meant us to believe this, when He called Himself our Father. Therefore it was that through her papa’s and mamma’s love Sunny could best be taught her first dim idea of God.

She walked along very sedately, conversing by the way, and not attempting to dart from side to side, after one object or another, as this butterfly child always does on a week-day. But Sunday, and Sunday clothes, conduced exceedingly to proper behaviour. Besides, she felt that she was her mamma’s companion, and was proud accordingly. Until, just before reaching the church, came a catastrophe which certainly could not have happened in any other church-going walk than this.

A huge, tawny-coloured bull stood in the centre of the road, with half a dozen cows and calves behind him. They moved away, feeding leisurely on either side the road, but the bull held his ground, looking at mamma and Sunny from under his shaggy brows, as if he would like to eat them up.

“Mamma, take her!” whispered the poor little girl, rather frightened, but neither crying nor screaming.

Mamma popped her prayer-book in her pocket, dropped her parasol on the ground, and took up her child on her left arm, leaving the right arm free. A fortnight ago she would have been alarmed, but now she understood the ways of these Highland cattle, and that they were not half so dangerous as they looked. Besides, the fiercest animal will often turn before a steady, fearless human eye. So they stood still, and faced the bull, even Sunny meeting the creature with a gaze as firm and courageous as her mamma’s. He stood it for a minute or so, then he deliberately turned tail, and walked up the hillside.

“The big bull didn’t hurt Sunny! He wouldn’t hurt little Sunny, would he, mamma?” said she, as they walked on together. She has the happiest conviction that no creature in the world would ever be so unkind as to hurt Sunny. How should it, when she is never unkind to any living thing? When the only living thing that ever she saw hurt--a wasp that crept into the carriage, and stung Sunny on her poor little leg, and her nurse was so angry that she killed it on the spot--caused the child a troubled remembrance. She talked, months afterward, with a grave countenance, of “the wasp that was obliged to be killed, because it stung Sunny.”

She soon looked benignly at the big bull, now standing watching her from the hillside, and wanted to play with the little calves, who still stayed feeding near. She was also very anxious to know if they were going to church too? But before the question--a rather puzzling one--could be answered, she was overtaken by the rest of the congregation, including Maurice and Eddie with their parents. The two boys only smiled at her, and walked into church, so good and grave that Sunny was impressed into preternatural gravity too. When the rest were seated, she, holding her mamma’s hand, walked quietly in as if accustomed to it all and joined the congregation.

The seat they chose was, for precaution, the one nearest the door, and next to “_the_ pauper,” an old man who alone of all the inhabitants of the glen did not work, but received parish relief. He was just able to come to church, but looked as if he had “one foot in the grave,” as people say (whither, indeed, the other foot soon followed, for the poor old man died not many weeks after this Sunday). He had a wan, weary, but uncomplaining face; and as the rosy child, with her bright curls, her fair, fresh cheeks, and plump, round limbs, sat down upon the bench beside him, the two were a strange and touching contrast.

Never did any child behave better than Little Sunshine, on this her first going to church. Yes, even though she soon caught sight of her own papa, sitting a few benches off, but afraid to look at her lest she should misbehave. Also of Maurice’s papa and mamma, and of Maurice and Eddie themselves, not noticing her at all, and behaving beautifully. She saw them, but, faithful to her promise, she did not speak one word, not even in a whisper to mamma. She allowed herself to be lifted up and down, to sit or stand as the rest did, and when the music began she listened with an ecstasy of pleasure on her little face; but otherwise she conducted herself as well as if she had been thirteen instead of not quite three years old. Once only, when the prayers were half through, and the church was getting warm, she gravely took off her hat and laid it on the bench before her,--sitting the rest of the service with her pretty curls bare,--but that was all.

During the sermon she was severely tried. Not by its length, for it was fortunately short, and she sat on her mamma’s lap, looking fixedly into the face of the minister, as pleased with him in his new position as when he was rowing her in the boat, or gathering nuts for her along the canal bank. All were listening, as attentive as possible, for everybody loved him, Sundays and week-days; and even Sunny herself gazed as earnestly as if she were taking in every word he said,--when her quick little eyes were caught by a new interest,--a small, shaggy Scotch terrier, who put his wise-looking head inquiringly in at the open door.

Oh, why was the church door left open? No doubt, so thought the luckless master of that doggie! He turned his face away; he kept as quiet as possible, hoping not to be discovered; but the faithful animal was too much for him. In an ecstasy of joy, the creature rushed in and out and under several people’s legs, till he got to the young man who owned him, and then jumped upon him in unmistakable recognition. Happily, he did not bark; indeed, his master, turning red as a peony, held his hand over the creature’s mouth.

What was to be done? If he scolded the dog, or beat him, there would be a disturbance immediately; if he encouraged or caressed him, the loving beast would have begun--in fact, he did slightly begin--a delighted whine. All the perplexed master could do was to keep him as quiet as circumstances allowed, which he managed somehow by setting his foot on the wildly wagging tail, and twisting his fingers in one of the long ears, the dog resisting not at all. Quite content, if close to his master, the faithful beast snuggled down, amusing himself from time to time by gnawing first a hat and then an umbrella, and giving one small growl as an accidental footstep passed down the road; but otherwise behaving as well as anybody in church. The master, too, tried to face out his difficulty, and listen as if nothing was the matter; but I doubt he rather lost the thread of the sermon.

So did Sunny’s mamma for a few minutes. Sunny is so fond of little doggies, that she fully expected the child to jump from her lap, and run after this one; or, at least, to make a loud remark concerning it, for the benefit of the congregation generally. But Sunny evidently remembered that “nobody spoke in church;” and possibly she regarded the dog’s entrance as a portion of the service, for she maintained the most decorous gravity. She watched him, of course, with all her eyes; and once she turned with a silent appeal to her mamma to look too, but said not a word. The little terrier himself did not behave better than she, to the very end of the service.

It ended with a beautiful hymn,--“O Thou from whom all goodness flows.” Everybody knows it, and the tune too; which I think was originally one of those sweet litanies to the Virgin which one hears in French churches, especially during the month of May. The little congregation knew it well, and sang it well, too. When Sunny saw them all stand up, she of her own accord stood up likewise, mounting the bench beside the old pauper, who turned half round, and looked on the pleasant child with a faint, pathetic sort of smile.

Strange it was to stand and watch the different people who stood singing, or listening to, that hymn; Maurice and Eddie, with their papa and mamma; other papas and mammas with their little ones; farmers and farm-servants who lived in the glen, with a chance tourist or two who happened to be passing through; several old Highland women, grim and gaunt with long, hard-working lives; the poor old pauper, who did not know that his life was so nearly over; and lastly, the little three-year-old child, with her blue eyes wide open and her rosy lips parted, not stirring a foot or a finger, perfectly motionless with delight. Verse after verse rose the beautiful hymn, not the less beautiful because so familiar:

“O Thou from whom all goodness flows, I lift my soul to Thee; In all my sorrows, conflicts, woes, O Lord, remember me!

“When on my aching, burdened heart, My sins lie heavily, Thy pardon grant, Thy peace impart, In love, remember me!

“When trials sore obstruct my way, And ills I cannot flee, Oh I let my strength be as my day, For good, remember me!

“When worn with pain, disease, and grief, This feeble body see, Give patience, rest, and kind relief, Hear, and remember me!

“When in the solemn hour of death I wait Thy just decree, Be this the prayer of my last breath, ‘O Lord, remember me!’”

As Little Sunshine stood there, unconsciously moving her baby lips to the pretty tune,--ignorant of all the words and their meaning,--her mother, not ignorant, took the tiny soft hand in hers and said for her in her heart, “Amen.”

When the hymn was done, the congregation passed slowly out of church, most of them stopping to speak or shake hands, for of course all knew one another, and several were neighbours and friends. Then at last Sunny’s papa ventured to take up his little girl, and kiss her, telling her what a very good little girl she had been, and how pleased he was to see it. The minister, walking home between Maurice and Eddie, who seized upon him at once, turned round to say that he had never known a little girl, taken to church for the first time, behave so remarkably well. And though she was too young to understand anything except that she had been a good girl, and everybody loved her and was pleased with her, still Sunny also looked pleased, as if satisfied that church-going was a sweet and pleasant thing.