comb. At that unlucky moment up came brother Peter's big voice
calling from below, 'Dorcas, Dorcas, what are you all doing up there?
Why is not breakfast ready? I have milked the cow for you. You must
come down this very minute; I am starving!'

It was an uncomfortable morning; and the worst of it was that it was
First Day morning too. Dorcas had not known before that a First Day
morning could be uncomfortable. Usually First Day was the happiest day
in the whole week. Mother's hands were so gentle that, though the
children had been taught to help themselves as soon as they were old
enough, still Mother always seemed to know just when there was an
unruly button that needed a little coaxing to help it to find its
hole, or a string that wanted to get into a knot that ought to be
persuaded to tie itself into a bow.

Then breakfast was always a pleasant meal, with the big blue bowls
full of milk, warm from the cow, set out on the wooden table, and
Father sitting at one end raising his hand as he said a silent Grace.
Father never said any words at these times. But he bent his head as if
he were thanking Someone he loved very much, Someone close beside him,
for giving him the milk and bread to give to the children and for
making him very happy. So the children felt happy too. Dorcas thought
that the brown bread always tasted especially good on First Day
morning, because Father was at the head of the table to cut it and
hand it to them himself. On other, week-day, mornings he had to go off
much earlier, ploughing, or reaping, or gathering in the ripe corn
from the harvest-fields behind the farm. Also, Peter never teased the
little ones when Father was there. But to-day if there were no
breakfast, (and where was breakfast to come from?) Peter would be
dreadfully cross. Yet how could Dorcas go and get breakfast for Peter
when the three little ones were all wanting her help at once?

'I'm coming, Peter, as fast as ever I can,' she called back, in answer
to a second yet more peremptory summons. But, oh! how glad she was to
hear a gentle knock at the door of the thatched cottage a minute or
two later.

'Come in! come in!' she heard Peter saying joyfully as he opened the
door, and then came the sound of light footsteps on the wooden stairs.
Another minute, and the bedroom door opened gently, and a sunshiny
face looked into the children's untidy room.

'Why, it is thee, Hester!' Dorcas exclaimed, with a cry of joy. 'Oh, I
am gl