After having been to church, they seemed to consider that for them Sunday had ended, and they played about and amused themselves just as they pleased.
"Crump always played with us on Sunday afternoons," they would say when Esther suggested something more quiet and decorous, according to her ideas. They did not seem to understand why they should be more quiet on Sunday than on any other day, and it was not quite easy for Esther to explain.
"They must have been badly brought up," Prissy would say in her prim, grown-up fashion. "I think their father must be a very strange sort of man." But when Esther spoke to Genefer, she was a little comforted by hearing her say,--
"You see, Miss Esther, the poor little boys have had no mother to teach them, and gentlemen don't think of things quite like mothers. I don't think they mean to be naughty a bit, but they've not been taught as you have. Perhaps they'll get into better ways living here for a spell. But it's no good preaching at them. That'll never do it. You only get at children by making them love you. Then they like the things you like, and they learn different ways. They're getting fond of you, Miss Esther, my dear. They'll begin to copy you by and by, whether they know it or not."
Esther did not think Pickle and Puck had much notion of copying anybody; but she thought they were growing fond of her in a fashion, and she was certainly growing fond of them. If they brought new anxiety into her life, they brought a considerable amount of pleasure and variety too. She did not at all regret the arrangement, although she wished the boys had been just a little younger, so that she might have had more influence over them.
"We're going to have a Sunday school, and you're to teach!" cried Milly, running up to Esther as she sat in the yew arbor, thinking that the four little ones would rather be alone together. "We've learned our lessons, and Pickle and Puck have learned something, too; and now we're going to come and be a class, and you're to teach us."
There was plenty of room in the summer-house for the class; and a chair was set for Esther, whilst her four scholars occupied the fixed bench that ran round the arbor. They came in with looks of decorous gravity, and the boys pulled their forelocks, and Milly made a courtesy, whilst Esther felt half-embarrassed at so much respect and deference.