Sometimes, even to the best mothers, I know, there comes a sudden, sharp awakening. The son of much love and many prayers goes far astray; the daughter, her pride and joy in her early childhood, is apparently cold and heartless. But as a rule, I think, in the retrospect the cry is forced from many a mother's sad heart: "If only I had been more to him in early boyhood; cared for his games, and interested myself in all his play as well as work, it _might_ have been different"; or, "If I had dealt more tenderly and patiently with her when she was standing on the threshold of womanhood, it might have been different!"
Vain regrets, vain laments for some of us; but the young mother, like Joyce Falconer, has the children and the father of the children still with her, and may, as Joyce did, sing to herself a sweet, low song of thanksgiving, which made Lettice stop in her play, and, running up to her side, say:
"What a pretty song mother is singing to baby!"
And now another voice was heard, rather a sad, querulous voice, which did not chime in well with the mother's song, or the baby's gentle coo of gladness, or the laughter of the two little sisters, as Falcon dashed out upon them from the open door of the hall with a big ball in his hand, which he threw down the grass with a merry "Halloo!"
Falcon's lessons, which his mother had left him to learn, were over, and he was free to run and jump to his heart's content.
"Joyce, are you not coming to get ready? Aunt Falconer never likes to be kept waiting."
"Oh! I beg your pardon, Charlotte; I had forgotten you and I were to spend the day with mother; I will be ready in a few minutes. I must just wait till Susan can take baby." Susan appeared at this moment, and Joyce went quickly into the hall.
Poor Charlotte's visions and dreams had never come to be anything but dreams. She was older than Joyce, and still had never found the language of the eyes come to a good honest declaration of love, still less to an offer of marriage. She was just now on a visit to her cousin, Miss Falconer being very ready to spare her, hoping that in Clifton or Bristol she might find a cure for her low spirits, and generally dejected air, which her aunt did not like to have remarked upon by the gossips of Wells, and which had certainly very much increased of late.