| 290 | 291 | 292 | 293 | 294 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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attitude, without moving his eyes from the ceiling, or appearing to
take the smallest notice of anything that passed.
'Oh Kit!' said his mother, with her handkerchief to her eyes, 'what
have you done! I never can go there again - never!'
'
I'm glad of it, mother. What was there in the little bit of pleasure you
took last night that made it necessary for you to be low-spirited and
sorrowful tonight? That's the way you do. If you're happy or merry
ever, you come here to say, along with that chap, that you're sorry for
it. More shame for you, mother, I was going to say.'
'
Hush, dear!' said Mrs Nubbles; 'you don't mean what you say I know,
but you're talking sinfulness.'
'
Don't mean it? But I do mean it!' retorted Kit. 'I don't believe, mother,
that harmless cheerfulness and good humour are thought greater sins
in Heaven than shirt-collars are, and I do believe that those chaps are
just about as right and sensible in putting down the one as in leaving
off the other - that's my belief. But I won't say anything more about it,
if you'll promise not to cry, that's all; and you take the baby that's a
lighter weight, and give me little Jacob; and as we go along (which we
must do pretty quick) I'll give you the news I bring, which will surprise
you a little, I can tell you. There - that's right. Now you look as if you'd
never seen Little Bethel in all your life, as I hope you never will again;
and here's the baby; and little Jacob, you get atop of my back and
catch hold of me tight round the neck, and whenever a Little Bethel
parson calls you a precious lamb or says your brother's one, you tell
him it's the truest things he's said for a twelvemonth, and that if he'd
got a little more of the lamb himself, and less of the mint-sauce - not
being quite so sharp and sour over it - I should like him all the better.
That's what you've got to say to him, Jacob.'
Talking on in this way, half in jest and half in earnest, and cheering
up his mother, the children, and himself, by the one simple process of
determining to be in a good humour, Kit led them briskly forward; and
on the road home, he related what had passed at the Notary's house,
and the purpose with which he had intruded on the solemnities of
Little Bethel.
His mother was not a little startled on learning what service was
required of her, and presently fell into a confusion of ideas, of which
the most prominent were that it was a great honour and dignity to
ride in a post-chaise, and that it was a moral impossibility to leave the
children behind. But this objection, and a great many others, founded
on certain articles of dress being at the wash, and certain other
articles having no existence in the wardrobe of Mrs Nubbles, were
overcome by Kit, who opposed to each and every of them, the pleasure
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