Now I must explain that Leo's father was a very busy man. Some evenings he did not get home till long after not only Leo, but his big sisters and even his mother, were in bed, and sometimes he had to go off so early in the morning that for several days together, now and then, they scarcely saw him. This was a great trouble to them all, for they were very fond indeed of their father, and he was very fond of them. But it could not be helped for the present, though Leo was already looking forward to the time when he should 'be a man,' and able to help papa.
Lately, since Leo had started his post-office, his father had been even extra busy, and if he had heard about the matter at all, he had not paid much attention, or else he had quite forgotten it. The schoolroom in these children's house was at the end of the hall, and between it and the dining-room was a tiny little book-room or study, where their father kept all his own papers, and where he used to write when he was at home. Sometimes when he came home very late and let himself in with his latchkey, he would go straight to this little room, where a good fire was kept up, and there he would write answers to any letters he found waiting for him, and leave them on the hall-table all ready to be posted the very first thing in the morning by whichever of the servants was the earliest about; but I don't think any of the children or their mother knew of this custom of his, as it had never happened to come in their way.
The very evening of the day on which Leo and his mother had been talking so seriously about the missing stamps, papa, for a wonder, came home quite early. It was really a great treat to them all. He had dinner quite comfortably with mamma, and after dinner, when Marion and Cynthia and Leo were all in the drawing-room as usual, they kept saying to each other how nice it was to have papa with them.
'If only you could come home every day as early as this,' said Cynthia to him.
'But perhaps if I could, you wouldn't think so much of me,' said her father laughing.
'And I'm afraid mamma wouldn't let me sit up till nine every night,' said Leo, who had got an hour's grace this evening. 'Mamma,' he went on, coming close to her and whispering, 'do you think you'll sit up to-night and watch? I wouldn't mind you doing it with papa, you know.'
'I'll see about it,' said his mother, smiling, while his father looked up and asked what they were whispering about – it was a shame to have secrets from him when he was so seldom at home!
And as he spoke, he got up slowly from his comfortable chair by the fire.
'I'm afraid I must go down-stairs to the study,' he said. 'I have some letters to write, though I do feel very lazy about it.'
But immediately a cry was set up.
'O papa, do wait till we've gone to bed,' said the three voices. 'We shall be going in half an hour.'
So of course papa gave in.
Mamma had an interesting book to read after the children had gone to bed, and their father had left her to write his letters. She read on for some time, and then she began to feel chilly, and looking up she saw that the fire was getting low.
'I'll go down to the study,' she thought. 'There's sure to be a good fire there.'
As she went down-stairs it struck her that she would take a look into the schoolroom, and just notice if the 'post-office' drawers were shut, and all looking as usual.
'I might even,' she said to herself, 'count the stamps and compare my counting with Leo's to-morrow.'
But it was dark in the schoolroom. The fire, however, was not quite out; she turned to look for a match or a spill to light one of the candles. Her back was turned to the door, but as she stood there she heard it creak a little as some one pushed it open and came into the room. And this some one, much to her surprise, marched straight up to the stamp drawer, not to the money one, as if well acquainted with the arrangements, and by the light which came in from the hall stood quietly helping himself to some stamps. And who do you think it was? Why no one in the world but Leo's father himself!
Mamma all but burst out laughing, but she managed to stay quite still for a moment. Then she called out: 'What are you doing in that drawer?'
It was papa's turn to jump then! But he soon got over his start.
'What are you doing there all by yourself in the dark?' he said. 'And what should I be doing but taking a stamp or two, of course,' he went on, coolly. 'I've always forgotten to say what a good idea it is to have stamps and wrappers and things so handy here. I never knew you kept them here till a few nights ago, when I came in here to see if there was any coal, as my fire was nearly out, and the drawer was open.'
'Ah,' thought Mamma, 'Leo did say he had asked Cynthia to shut it the night he had a headache, and no doubt she forgot.'
'And,' papa went on, 'I was so glad to see where the stamps were, as I sometimes run short. Since then I've helped myself to whatever I wanted, two or three times.'
'So you are the culprit,' Leo's mother exclaimed, laughing. And then she told the whole story.
His father was very much interested, and very sorry to have caused any anxiety. He put a whole shilling into the 'till,' which more than put Leo's accounts straight. And the next day he did something still nicer. He brought Leo home the neatest little letter-weigher you ever saw, and told him to add a new rule, to say that letters should be weighed at a charge of a farthing each, in case anyone was in doubt how many stamps to put on. And he also gave Leo a present of a packet of big envelopes of different sizes, which he told him he might sell for a halfpenny each, as they were thick and strong. So Leo's business is flourishing and increasing very much, and he has even thoughts of adding luggage labels and registered-letter envelopes to his stock in trade.
And since the night that mamma watched for the burglars, not a single stamp or postcard or anything has ever been missing.
Brave Little Denis
The brave man is not he who feels no fear,
For that were stupid and irrational;
But he whose noble soul its fear subdues,
And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.
Joanna Baillie.
CHAPTER I. – WHAT IS 'BRAVE?'
The news had come up to the nursery, and there was great excitement and rejoicing. Linda and Nettie chattered so fast, and had so many questions to ask, that the 'big' boys, Alex and Lambert, when they came in to tea could not at first find out what it was all about, or get anyone to explain. And when at last baby – Miss Baby, who was two years old and quite understood that, when nurse wanted to speak, it was not the time to pull her shoes off and complain that 'hers toes was told' – condescended to be quiet and let poor nurse answer, the noise did not grow any less, I can assure you.
'Going to Baronscourt for Christmas. Hurrah!' shouted Alex. 'Three cheers for Granny, Lambert,' which Lambert was only too ready to join in.
'Do you think Granny will make us a Christmas-tree, nurse?' asked Nettie.
'She should,' said Linda, 'because of missing last year, you know.'
'Me kismas-tee, too,' said Baby.
'Silly little girl, everybody can't have a Christmas-tree for themselves,' said Linda; at which snub Baby began her preparations for a scream, which was only averted by Alex good-naturedly picking up his little sister and instructing her to give three cheers for Granny.
'Now join too, Denis,' said Linda. 'Why don't you cheer too?'
Denis raised his grave little face.
'I want to finish this story,' he said, dropping his eyes again on the book in his hands.
'What a fancy he's taken for reading, all of a sudden,' said Linda in a lower voice to nurse. 'I don't believe he understands it. He reads awfully slowly when he's at his lessons.'
'Well, Miss Linda, he's only five,' said nurse. 'It's nice for him to find something to keep him quiet sometimes. But he is rather strange this afternoon. I don't know what he's got in his head, sitting there by himself, though to be sure he's always a good bit quieter than his brothers.'
'He's such a baby for his age,' said Linda, rather contemptuously. 'When Alex was seven – that's only two years older than Denis is now – he could do all sorts of things – jump his pony and play cricket, and' —
'I don't think you can remember much about it, Linda,' said Alex, who had overheard her. 'When I was seven you were only five, and that's three years ago, and when Lam was five he couldn't do any better than Den.'
'Because Lambert was delicate, and Denis is not a bit delicate; he's just very babyish,' said Linda, turning away, as if that settled the question.
Denis looked up and opened his lips as if going to speak, but then shut them again and said nothing.
'Aren't you glad to go to Baronscourt, Den?' said gentle little Nettie, the sister who came next him in age. She was sitting beside him at the tea-table, and spoke in rather a low voice. 'Don't you remember how pretty it is there? It's only six months since we were there last. You can't have forgotten it.'
'No,' said Denis; 'I've not forgotten it.'
'Then, aren't you glad to go?'
'I'm glad to see Granny and Prince,' said Denis; but that was all Nettie could get out of him.
He was always a quiet little boy, but during the next few days, if anyone had noticed him closely, it would have been seen that he was even quieter than usual. But these next few days were very busy ones, for the Christmas visit to Baronscourt had been decided on hurriedly, and the nursery arrangements were rather upset. Only once, when the children's mother had come up to see them, she noticed Denis sitting silently in a corner with a very grave look on his little face.
'Is he not well?' she asked nurse, and nurse, after a glance in the child's direction, replied 'that she did not think he was ill; he was often very quiet – it would pass off again.'
'The change to Baronscourt will brighten him up,' said his mother. And then she went on to tell nurse some of the arrangements.
'I had a letter this morning,' she said. 'The house will be very full, but they can take us all in. The girls will have the little room next to mine, and the boys will have the turret room at the end of the picture gallery.'
A movement beside her made her stop and look round. Denis had left his corner and was standing beside her, listening with all his ears, and gazing up in her face with his large soft blue eyes.
'And where will nurse, and 'Liza, and baby, and me sleep,' he asked.
His mother laughed.
'You won't be forgotten,' she said. 'Nurse and baby will have the old nursery, and you will have a little cot beside them, I daresay.'
A look of satisfaction crept over his face.
'And 'Liza?' he asked.
'Oh, poor 'Liza won't be forgotten either,' said his mother.
Denis grew brighter after this conversation, and at tea that afternoon, when all the children were talking, he joined in as usual.
'Mother told me where you'se all to sleep at Granny's house,' he announced, impatiently. 'I'm to sleep with nurse and baby.'
'Yes, of course, because you're such a baby yourself,' said Linda. 'Nettie and I are to have a room to ourselves like we have at home. I hope it'll be the turret room at the end of the gallery. I do so love the gallery – at night, you know, when the moon comes in through the coloured glass and makes all the faces of the pictures look so queer – red and purple, and blue and green. The red ones look quite jolly, but the green and blue ones look dreadful.'
'Like ghosts,' suggested Lambert.
'Yes, something like that, I suppose,' said Linda, as if she was in the habit of seeing ghosts, and knew quite what they were like.
'Or like us when we play snapdragon – at the end, you know, when they throw salt in among the brandy,' suggested Nettie.
'Don't talk about that, please, Nettie,' whispered Denis, tugging softly at his sister's arm.
Nettie looked surprised, but she understood Den better than did any of the others, so she said no more; but later in the evening, when they were alone, she asked him what he meant.
'I don't know,' said Denis; 'don't ask me; I want to forget about it,' and he gave a little shiver.
And question as Nettie would, he could not be got to explain further.
There was only one Sunday at home before the day came for going. It was a cold and snowy day; too cold, it was decided, for the children to go to church, so in the afternoon their mother sent for them all to read with her. The stormy weather led to their talking about adventures in winter – about poor travellers being lost in the snow, and the brave things that had been done to rescue them sometimes, and the children's mother told them some stories which they thought very interesting.
'What is "brave?"' asked Denis suddenly. He was sitting beside his mother, and was holding her hand.
Mother looked round.
'Suppose you each answer Denis's question?' she said. 'I'll begin with you, Alex, as you're the oldest. What does true bravery mean?'
'Den didn't say "true" bravery, mother,' objected Linda, who had already shrugged her plump shoulders contemptuously at her little brother's question, with a muttered 'So silly – anybody could tell that.' – 'He only said, "what does 'brave' mean?" If you say "true bravery," it gets more puzzling.'
Mother looked at Linda with a rather amused expression.
'That is why I added the word you object to, my dear Linda. I want you all to think about it a little, not just to answer what "anybody can tell," without reflecting at all.' Linda blushed. Sometimes it was annoying that mother had such quick ears. But she said nothing. 'Come, Alex,' continued mother, 'what is true bravery?'
'Oh, I don't know. I don't see anything puzzling,' said Alex, looking puzzled, nevertheless. 'It just means not being afraid of anything. It's just the way people are made. Some are afraid, and some aren't. I'm never afraid, but it's just that I'm made that way,' he went on.
'But if that's it, it has nothing to do with being good,' said Lambert, who was more thoughtful than Alex. 'I mean, it's no use thinking about a thing that comes of itself like that, mother. And yet being brave is always counted as if it was something good, something to be praised for.'
He raised his face to his mother's, questioningly.
'Well, try and put your feeling about it into words,' she said.
Lambert hesitated.
'I know,' said Linda, confidently. 'Mother means that true bravery is when there's no pretending about it. Some people who are really afraid pretend they're not – boastingly, you know.'
'And that is one sort of cowardice,' said her mother. 'They don't own the truth, because they're afraid of being thought afraid. You're right so far, Linda; but you do not go quite far enough.'
A little eager sound from Nettie caught her attention.
'Well, Nettie, have you something to say?' she asked.
'I don't quite know,' Nettie began. 'I thought I could see it, but I'm not sure. But isn't it a little like this, mother – that whether one's afraid or not, one should try to do anything that's right to do?'
Her mother smiled.
'Yes, that is something like it,' she said. 'That's what I have been wanting you to get to see. The mastering the fear– that is the truest bravery of all. Not for what others may or may not think of us, but because it is right. When a duty comes in the way, something right or good or kind to do, a really brave person, man, woman, or child, will do it even if it is something which they fear to do.'
'But still,' Lambert objected, 'there are some people praised for being brave who don't feel fear – like what Alex said. Should they not be praised, mother?'
'Certainly they should be praised for doing right at risk to themselves,' said his mother. 'It is a great blessing to be naturally brave – what is called physically brave. But I doubt if even the naturally bravest men have never known fear. It is the determination to do their duty at all costs that keeps them brave and gives strength and courage. And this even the most timid by nature can learn; so this is what I call true bravery. Not the unreasoning courage of a lion or a bulldog, but the courage of a man who knows his duty and will do it.'
The children sat silent – each in his or her own way thinking over their mother's words. One only had said nothing, but he was pondering deeply, and his mother, glancing round, saw Denis gazing before him with a curious look in his innocent blue eyes.
'Do you understand a little, Denis, my boy?' she asked, with a smile.
'I fink so,' he answered softly, and she felt him squeeze the hand he held. But that