True Heroism by Charlotte Maria Tucker

IT was a busy day to the children at Ivy Lodge; not one felt the time pass wearily. Even quicksilver Amy had been quiet for awhile, as she sat with knitted brows biting the end of her pencil.

Old Mrs. Presgrave had not been startled once by the sound of a sudden shout or a heavy fall, and volumes were drawn from their corners in the bookcase by hands that seldom had opened books but from necessity. Mrs. Gore had found it difficult to proceed in her needle-work, so numerous were the interruptions from the literary juveniles. Thrice had she to rise to search for books, and ten times to stop to mend a pen, innumerable were the applications for aid in spelling; and when at last the young party assembled after dinner, Willy's story was written on cream-tinted paper, in the hand of his indulgent mother.