Even
nurse allowed Clarence's merits towards me and little Emily, but
always with the sigh: 'If he was but as good in other respects, but
them quiet ones is always sly.'
Good Nurse Gooch! We all owe much to her staunch fidelity, strong
discipline, and unselfish devotion, but nature had not fitted her to
deal with a timid, sensitive child, of highly nervous temperament.
Indeed, persons of far more insight might have been perplexed by the
fact that Clarence was exemplary at church and prayers, family and
private,--whenever Griff would let him, that is to say,--and would
add private petitions of his own, sometimes of a startling nature.
He never scandalised the nursery, like Griff, by unseemly pranks on
Sundays, nor by innovations in the habits of Noah's ark, but was as
much shocked as nurse when the lion was made to devour the elephant,
or the lion and wolf fought in an embrace fatal to their legs.
Bible stories and Watt's hymns were more to Clarence than even to
me, and he used to ask questions for which Gooch's theology was
quite insufficient, and which brought the invariable answers, 'Now,
Master Clarry, I never did! Little boys should not ask such
questions!' 'What's the use of your pretending, sir! It's all
falseness, that's what it is! I hates hypercriting!' 'Don't
worrit, Master Clarence; you are a very naughty boy to say such
things.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25