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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/38761-h.zip b/38761-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0dd8079 --- /dev/null +++ b/38761-h.zip diff --git a/38761-h/38761-h.htm b/38761-h/38761-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..36ffd84 --- /dev/null +++ b/38761-h/38761-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2865 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + +<head> + + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Man With The Pan-pipes And Other Stories, by Mrs. Molesworth. + </title> + + <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> + + <style type="text/css"> + + #img007 {background:url(images/img007.jpg) no-repeat top left} + #img007a {float:left; 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+ } + + *.bold { + font-weight:bold; + } + + *.clearboth { + clear:both; + } + + *.clearleft { + clear:left; + } + + *.clearright { + clear:right; + } + + *.correction { + color:inherit; + text-decoration:none; + background-color:#EEEEEE; + } + + *.smcap { + font-variant:small-caps; + } + + *.wrapr { + float: right; + padding: 0; + } + + </style> + +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man with the Pan Pipes, by +Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Man with the Pan Pipes + and other Stories + +Author: Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth + +Illustrator: W. J. Morgan + +Release Date: February 4, 2012 [EBook #38761] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WITH THE PAN PIPES *** + + + + +Produced by Delphine Lettau, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at +http://www.pgdpcanada.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="513" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/tp.jpg" width="400" height="545" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h1 class="booktitle">THE MAN WITH THE PAN-PIPES<br /><small><i>AND OTHER STORIES</i></small></h1> +<p class="h3">BY</p> +<p class="h2">Mrs. MOLESWORTH</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h5">ILLUSTRATED BY W. J. MORGAN</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h4">Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge<br /> +LONDON<br /> +Northumberland Avenue W.C.<br /> +NEW YORK<br /> +E & J.B. YOUNG & Co</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h6">LONDON:<br /> +ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY EDMUND EVANS<br /> +RACQUET-CT., FLEET-ST., E.C.</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="main"> + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<div class="bold toc"> +<p class="smcap"> +<span class="right"><small>Page</small></span><br /> +<a href="#The_Man_with_the_Pan-Pipes">The Man with the Pan-Pipes</a> +<span class="right">7</span><br /> +<a href="#Pig-Betty">Pig-Betty</a> +<span class="right">30</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_DORMOUSES_MISTAKE">The Dormouse's Mistake.</a> +<span class="right">51</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_CHRISTMAS_GUEST">The Christmas Guest.</a> +<span class="right">59</span><br /> +<a href="#OLIVES_TEA-PARTY">Olive's Tea-party.</a> +<span class="right">67</span><br /> +<a href="#A_LIVE_DUMMY">A Live Dummy.</a> +<span class="right">76</span><br /> +<a href="#A_Queer_Hiding-Place">A Queer Hiding-Place</a> +<span class="right">83</span><br /> +<a href="#Blue_Frocks_and_Pink_Frocks">Blue Frocks and Pink Frocks</a> +<span class="right">90</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[7]</span></p> + +<h2 id="The_Man_with_the_Pan-Pipes">The Man with the Pan-Pipes</h2> + +<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<div id="img007"> +<div id="img007a"> </div> +<div id="img007r"> </div> +<div id="img007b"> </div> +<div id="img007c"> </div> +<div id="img007d"> </div> +<div id="img007e"> </div> +<div id="img007f"> </div> + +<p class="top0"><b><span class="hide">W</span><span class="smcap">hen</span></b> I was a little girl, which is now a good many years ago, there +came to spend some time with us a cousin who had been brought up in +Germany. She was almost grown-up—to me, a child of six or seven, she +seemed <i>quite</i> grown-up; in reality, she was, I suppose, about fifteen +or sixteen. She was a bright, kind, good-natured girl, very anxious to +please and amuse her little English cousins, especially me, as I was +the only girl. But she had not had much to do with small children; +above all, delicate children, and she was so strong and hearty herself +that she did not understand anything about nervous fears and fancies. +I think I was rather delicate, at least, I was very fanciful; and as I +was quiet and gave very little trouble, nobody noticed how constantly +I was reading, generally in a corner by myself. I now see that I read +far too many stories, for even of good and harmless things it is +possible to have too<span class="pagenum">[8]</span> much. In those days, fortunately for me, there +were not nearly so many books for children, so, as I read very fast, I +was often obliged to read the same stories over and over again. This +was much better for me than always getting new tales and galloping +through them, as I see many children do now-a-days, but still I think +I lived too much in story-book world, and it was well for me when +other things forced me to become more, what is called, "practical."</p> + +</div><!--img007--> + +<p>My cousin Meta was full of life and activity, and after awhile she +grew tired of always finding me buried in my books.</p> + +<p>"It isn't good for you, Addie," she said. "Such a dot as you are, to +be always poking about in a corner reading."</p> + +<p>She was quite right, and when mamma's attention was drawn to it she +agreed with Meta, and I was given some pretty fancy-work to do and +some new dolls to dress, and, above all, I was made to play about in +the garden a good deal more. It was not much of a garden, for our home +was then in a town, still it was better than being indoors. And very +often when kind Meta saw me looking rather forlorn, for I got quickly +tired with outdoor games, she would come and sit with me in the +arbour, or walk about—up and down a long gravel path there +was—telling me stories.</p> + +<p>That was her great charm for me. She was really splendid at telling +stories. And as hitherto she had only done me good, and mamma knew +what a sensible girl she was, Meta was left free to tell me what +stories she chose. They were all nice stories, most of them very<span class="pagenum">[9]</span> +interesting. But some were rather too exciting for such a tiny mite as +I was. Meta had read and heard quantities of German fairy-tales and +legends, many of which I think had not then been printed in +books—certainly not in English books. For since I have been grown-up +I have come across several stories of the kind which seemed new to +most readers, though I remember my cousin telling them to me long, +long ago.</p> + +<div> +<img class="wrapr" src="images/img009.jpg" width="250" height="432" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>There were wonderful tales of gnomes and kobolds, of the strange +adventures of the charcoal-burners in lonely forests, of water-sprites +and dwarfs. But none of all these made quite as great an impression on +me as one which Meta called "The Man with the Pan-pipes," a story +which, much to my surprise, I found years after in a well-known poem +called "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." It was the very same story as to +the facts, with just a few differences; for instance, the man in the +poem is not described as playing on <i>pan-pipes</i>, but on some other +kind of pipe. But though it is really the same, it seems quite, quite<span class="pagenum">[10]</span> +different from the story as I heard it long ago. In the poem there is +a wonderful brightness and liveliness, and now and then even fun, +which were all absent in Meta's tale. As she told it, it was strangely +dark and mysterious. I shall never forget how I used to shiver when +she came to the second visit of the piper, and described how the +children slowly and unwillingly followed him—how he used to turn +round now and then with a glance in his grim face which made the +squeal of the pipes still more unearthly. There was no beauty in his +music, no dancing steps were the children's whom he dragged along by +his power; "they just <i>had</i> to go," Meta would say. And when she came +to the mysterious ending, my questions were always the same.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img012.jpg" width="600" height="264" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Are they still there—shut up in the cave?" I would ask.</p> + +<p>Meta supposed so.</p> + +<p>"Will they never come out—never, never?" I said.</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[11]</span></p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img011.jpg" width="600" height="416" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"And if they ever did," I said, "would they be grown-up people, or +quite old like—like that man you were telling me about. Rip—Rip—"</p> + +<p>"Rip van Winkle," she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, like Rip van Winkle, or would they have <i>stayed</i> children like +the boy the fairies took inside the hill to be their servant?"</p> + +<p>Meta considered.</p> + +<p>"I almost <i>think</i>," she said, seriously, "they would have stayed +children. But, of course, it's only a story, Addie. I don't suppose +it's true. You take things up so. Don't go on puzzling about it."</p> + +<p>I would leave off speaking about it for the time; I was so dreadfully<span class="pagenum">[12]</span> +afraid of her saying she would not tell it me again. And even though I +knew it quite well, and could correct Meta if ever she made any part +of it the least different, I was never tired of hearing the story. I +would ask for it over and over again, and I used to have exactly the +same feelings each time she told it, and always at the part where the +children began to come out of their houses, some leaving their +dinners, some tiny ones waking up out of their sleep, some only +half-dressed, but all with the same strange look on their faces, I +used to catch hold of Meta's hand and say to her, "Hold me fast, I'm +so afraid of fancying I hear him," and then she would burst out +laughing at me, and I would laugh at myself. For she was far too kind +a girl to think of frightening me, and, indeed, except for a curious +"coincidence"—to use a very long word which means something of the +same kind as another thing happening at or about the same time—I do +not think the story would have really taken hold of my fancy as it +did.</p> + +<p>One of my questions Meta was not able for some time to answer to my +satisfaction.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img010.jpg" width="600" height="271" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[13]</span></p> + +<p>"What are Pan-pipes?" I asked. The word "pipe" was so mixed up in my +mind with white clay pipes, out of which we used to blow soap bubbles, +that I could not understand it having to do with any kind of music.</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Meta, "they're made of reeds, you know, all in a row like +this," and she held up her fingers to her lips, "and you play them by +whistling along them, do you see? It sounds something like when you +fasten tissue-paper on a comb and blow along it. And they're called +'Pan'-pipes because—oh, I forgot, of course you haven't learnt +mythology yet—'Pan' was one of the old pagan gods, a sort of fairy or +wood sprite, you know, Addie, and the pictures and figures of him +always show him playing on these reed pipes!"</p> + +<p>I said "Yes," but I didn't really understand her description. It left +a queer jumble in my head, and added to the strange, dreamy medley +already there. But, though it was not till years afterwards that I +learnt about "Pan," before Meta left us I was able to see for myself a +set of his "pipes."</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img013.jpg" width="202" height="44" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[14]</span></p> + +<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<div> +<img class="wrap" src="images/img014.jpg" width="250" height="451" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p><br /><b><span class="hide">I</span>T</b> was <i>just</i> before my merry cousin left us, to return to her own +home across the sea.</p> + +<p>One day several of us were out walking together. Meta was in front +with mamma and one of my elder brothers, I was behind with Tony and +Michael, the two nearer my own age. Suddenly Meta glanced round.</p> + +<p>"Look, Addie," she called back, "there's a set of Pan-pipes; you +wanted to know what they were like. They're a very doleful set, +certainly; did you <i>ever</i> see such a miserable object? He must be +silly in his head, poor thing, don't you think, aunty? May I give him +a penny—or Jack will."</p> + +<p>For even Meta did not seem inclined to go too near to the poor man, +whom she was indeed right in calling "a miserable object."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[15]</span></p> + +<p>Jack ran forward with the penny, and we all stopped for a moment, so I +had a full view of the Pan-pipes. They were fastened somehow on to the +man's chest, so that their top just came near his lips, and as he +moved his head slowly backwards and forwards along them, they gave out +the most strange kind of music, if music it could be called, which you +ever heard. It was a sort of faint squeak with just now and then a +<i>kind</i> of tone in it, like very doleful muffled whistling. Perhaps the +sight of the piper himself added to the very "creepy" feeling it gave +one. He was not only a piper, he was, or rather had been, an +organ-grinder too, for he carried in front of him, fastened by straps +round his neck in the usual way, the remains of a barrel organ. It had +long ago been smashed to pieces, and really was now nothing but an old +broken-in wooden box, with some fragments of metal clinging to it, and +the tatters of a ragged cover. But the handle was still there; perhaps +it had been stuck in again on purpose; and all the time, as an +accompaniment to the forlorn quaver of the reed pipes, you heard the +hollow rattle of the loose boards of what had been the barrel-organ. +He kept moving the handle round and round, without ever stopping, +except for a moment, when Jack half threw, half reached him the penny, +which brought a sort of grin on to his face, as he clutched at the +dirty old tuft of shag on the top of his head, which he doubtless +considered his cap.</p> + +<p>"Poor creature," said mamma, as we turned away. "I suppose he thinks +he's playing lovely music."</p> + +<p>"I've seen him before," said Jack. "Not long after we came here."<span class="pagenum">[16]</span> +(Perhaps I should explain that my father was an officer, and we had to +go about wherever his regiment was sent.) "But I've not seen him +lately. There's some story about him, but I know some of the boys at +school declare he's not mad a bit, that he finds it pays well to sham +he is."</p> + +<p>"Any way he doesn't need to be afraid of his organ wearing out," said +Tony, gravely, at which the others couldn't help laughing.</p> + +<div id="img016"> +<div id="img016a"> </div> +<div id="img016b"> </div> + + +<p>"I shouldn't think it likely he is only pretending," said mamma. "He +looks almost <i>too</i> miserable."</p> + +<p>"And sometimes there's quite a crowd of children after him," Jack went +on; "they seem to think him quite as good to run after as a proper +barrel-organ man."</p> + +<p>"I hope they don't hoot and jeer at him," said mamma.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[17]</span></p> + +<p>"His Pan-pipes are nearly as bad as his organ," said Meta. "Still, +Addie, you know now what they're like, though you can't fancy how +pretty they sound sometimes."</p> + +</div><!--img016--> + +<p>It did not need her words to remind me of the story. My head was full +of it, and I think what Jack said about the crowds of children that +sometimes ran after the strange musician, added very much to the +feelings and fancies already in my mind. And unfortunately Meta left +us the very next morning, so there was no one for me to talk to about +it, for my brothers were all day at school and did not know anything +about our story-tellings. I do remember saying to Meta that evening, +that I hoped we should never meet that ugly man again, and Meta could +not think what I meant, till I said something about Pan-pipes. Then +she seemed to remember.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he didn't play them at all nicely," she said. "One of the boys at +home had a set, and he really made them sound lovely. When you come to +Germany, Addie," for that was a favourite castle in the air of ours—a +castle that never was built—that I should one day pay a long visit to +my cousins in their quaint old house, "Fritz will play to you, and you +will then understand the story better."</p> + +<p>I daresay I should have told her the reason why I so hoped I should +never meet the poor man again, if I had had time. But even to her I +was rather shy of talking about my own feelings, and it was also not +easy to explain them, when they were so mixed up and confused.</p> + +<p>It was only a few days after Meta left, that we met the man with the<span class="pagenum">[18]</span> +Pan-pipes again. This time I was out walking with our nurse and the +baby, as we still called him, though he was three years old. I don't +think nurse noticed the man, or perhaps she had seen him before, but I +heard the queer squeal of his pipes and the rattle of his broken box +some way off, and when I saw him coming in the distance I asked her if +we might turn down a side street and go round another way.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img018.jpg" width="550" height="338" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>She said she did not mind, but though she was kind, she was not very +noticing, and did not ask my reason, so for that day it was got over +without my needing to explain. But for some time after that, we seemed +to be always meeting the poor "silly" organ-man, and every time I saw +him, I grew more and more frightened, till at last the fear of seeing<span class="pagenum">[19]</span> +him came quite to spoil the pleasure of my walks, even when I was out +with mamma herself. Now I dare say all sensible children who read this +will say, "Why didn't Addie tell her nurse, or, any way, her mother, +all about it?" and if they do say so, they are quite right. Indeed, it +is partly to show this very thing—how much better it is to tell some +kind wiser person all about any childish fear or fancy, than to go on +bearing it out of dread of being laughed at or called babyish—that I +am relating this simple little story. I really cannot quite explain +why I did not tell about it to mamma—I think it was partly that being +the only girl, I had a particularly great fear of being thought +cowardly—for she was always very kind; and I think, too, it was +partly that from having read so many story-books <i>to myself</i>, I had +got into the habit of being too much inside<span class="pagenum">[20]</span> my own thoughts and +fancies. I think story-books would often do much more good, and give +really much more lasting pleasure if children were more in the habit +of reading aloud to each other. And if this calls for some +unselfishness, why, what then? is it not all the better?</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img019.jpg" width="600" height="338" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>But to return to my own story. There came a day when my dread of the +man with the pipes got quite beyond my control—happily so for me.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img020.jpg" width="300" height="126" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[21]</span></p> + +<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<p class="dropcap">H<span class="smcap bold">itherto</span>, every time I had seen the man, it had been either in some +large public street where a crowd would not have been allowed to +collect, or in one of the quieter roads of private houses, where we +generally walked, and where poor children seldom were to be seen.</p> + +<p>But one day mamma sent Baby and me with nurse to carry some little +comfort to one of the soldier's wives, who was so ill that she had +been moved to the house of relations of hers in the town. They were +very respectable people, but they lived in quite a tiny house in a +poor street. Baby and I had never been there before, and we were much +interested in watching several small people, about our own size, +playing about. They were clean, tidy-looking children, so nurse, after +throwing a glance at them, told us we might watch them from the door +of the house while she went in to see the sick woman.</p> + +<p>We had not stood there more than a minute or two when a strange, +well-known sound caught my ears, squeak, squeal, rattle, rattle, +rattle. Oh, dear! I felt myself beginning to tremble; I am sure I grew +pale. The children we were watching started up, and ran some paces +down the<span class="pagenum">[22]</span> street to a corner, when in another moment appeared what I +already knew was coming—the man with the Pan-pipes! But never had the +sight of him so terrified me. For he was surrounded by a crowd of +children, a regular troop of them following him through the poor part +of the town where we were. If I had kept my wits, and looked on +quietly, I would have soon seen that the children were not the least +afraid, they were chattering and laughing; some, I fear, mocking and<span class="pagenum">[23]</span> +hooting at the poor imbecile. But just at that moment the last touch +was added to my terror by my little brother pulling his hand out of +mine.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img022.jpg" width="600" height="554" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Baby wants to see too," he said, and off he trotted down the street.</p> + +<p>My senses seemed quite to go.</p> + +<p>"He's piping them away," I screamed, and then I am ashamed to say I +turned and fled, leaving Baby to his fate. Why I did not run into the +house and call nurse, I do not know; if I thought about it at all, I +suppose I had a hazy feeling that it would be no good, that even nurse +could not save us. And I saw that the crowd was coming my way, in +another minute the squeaking piping would be close beside me in the +street. I thought of nothing except flight, and terrified that I too +should be bewitched by the sound, I thrust my fingers into my ears, +and dashed down the street in the opposite direction from the +approaching crowd. That was my only thought. I ran and ran. I wonder +the people I passed did not try to stop me, for I am sure I must have +looked quite as crazy as my imaginary wizard! But at last my breath +got so short that I had to pull up, and to my great relief I found I +was quite out of hearing of the faint whistle of the terrible pipes.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img024.jpg" width="542" height="312" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>Still I was not completely reassured. I had not come very far after +all. So I set off again, though not quite at such a rate. I hurried +down one street and up another, with the one idea of getting further<span class="pagenum">[24]</span> +and further away. But by degrees my wits began to recover themselves.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could find our home," I thought. "I can't go on running for +always. Perhaps if I told mamma all about it, she'd find some way of +keeping me and Baby safe."</p> + +<p>But with the thought of Baby came back my terrors. Was it too late to +save him? Certainly there were no rocks or caves to be seen such as +Meta had described in her story. But she had said outside the +town—perhaps the piper was leading all the children, poor darling +Baby among them, away into the country, to shut them up for ever as +had been done in Hamelin town. And with the dreadful thought, all my +terrors revived, and off I set again, but this time with the<span class="pagenum">[25]</span> more +worthy intention of saving Baby. I must go home and tell mamma so that +she would send after him. I fancied I was in a street not far from +where we lived, and I hurried on. But, alas! when I got to the end it +was all quite strange. I found myself among small houses again, and +nearly dead with fatigue and exhaustion, I stopped in front of one +where an old woman was sweeping the steps of her door.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img026.jpg" width="250" height="316" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Oh, please," I gasped, "please tell me where Clarence Terrace is."</p> + +<p>The old woman stopped sweeping, and looked at me. She was a very clean +old woman, though so small that she was almost a dwarf, and with a +slight hump on her shoulders. At another time I might have been so +silly as to be frightened of her, so full was my head of fanciful +ideas. But now I was too completely in despair to think of it. Besides +her face was kind and her voice pleasant.</p> + +<p>"Clarence Terrace," she squeaked. "'Tis a good bit from here. Have you +lost your way, Missy?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," I said, "I——" but then a giddy feeling came over me, +and I almost fell. The old woman caught me, and the next thing I knew +was that she had carried me into her neat little kitchen, and was +holding a glass of water to my lips, while she spoke very kindly. Her +voice somehow brought things to a point, and I burst into tears. She +soothed me, and petted me, and at last in answer to her repeated, +"What's ado, then, lovey?" I was able to explain to her some part of<span class="pagenum">[26]</span> +my troubles. Not all of course, for even upset as I was, I had sense +to know she would have thought <i>me</i> not "right in my head," if I had +told her my cousin's strange fantastic story of the piper in the old +German town.</p> + +<p>"Frightened of old Davey," she said, when I stopped. "Dear dear, +there's no call to be afeared of the poor old silly. Not but what I've +said myself he was scarce fit to be about the streets for the look of +him, though he'd not hurt a fly, wouldn't silly Davey."</p> + +<p>"Then do you know him?" I asked, with a feeling of great relief.<span class="pagenum">[27]</span> All +the queer nightmare fears seemed to melt away, when I heard the poor +crazy piper spoken of in a matter-of-fact way.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img027.jpg" width="600" height="453" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Know him," repeated my new friend, "I should think we did. Bless you +he comes every Saturday to us for his dinner, as reg'lar as the clock +strikes, and has done for many a day. Twelve year, or so, it must be, +since he was runned over by a bus, and his poor head smashed in, and +his organ busted, and his pipes broke to bits. He was took to the +'orspital and patched up, but bein' a furriner was against him, no +doubt," and the old woman shook her head sagely. "He couldn't talk +proper before, and since, he can say nothink as<span class="pagenum">[28]</span> any one can make head +or tail of. But as long as he's free to go about with his rattlin' old +box as was onst a' orgin, he's quite happy. They give 'im new pipes at +the 'orspital, but he can't play them right. And a bit ago some +well-intending ladies had 'im took off to a 'sylum, sayin' as he +wasn't fit to be about. But he nearly died of the bein' shut up, he +did. So now he's about again, he has a little room in a street near +here, that is paid for, and he gets a many pennies, does Davey, and +the neighbours sees to him, and he's quite content, and he does no +harm, and all the town knows silly Davey."</p> + +<p>"But don't naughty children mock at him and tease him sometimes?" I +asked.</p> + +<p>"Not so often as you'd think, and they're pretty sure to be put down +if they do. All the perlice knows Davey. So now, my dear, you'll never +be afeared of the poor thing no more, will you? And I'll step round +with you to your 'ome, I will, and welcome."</p> + +<p>So she did, and on the way, to my unspeakable delight, we came across +nurse and Baby, nearly out of their wits with terror at having lost +me. For Baby had only followed the piper a very short way, and did not +find him interesting.</p> + +<p>"Him were a old silly, and couldn't make nice music," said sensible +Baby.</p> + +<p>And though we often met poor crazy Davey after that, and many of my +weekly pennies found their way to him as long as we stayed in the<span class="pagenum">[29]</span> +place, I never again felt any terror of the harmless creature. +Especially after I had told the whole story to mamma, who was wise +enough to see that too many fairy stories, or "fancy" stories are +<i>not</i> a good thing for little girls, though of course she was too kind +and too just to blame Meta, who had only wished to entertain and amuse +me.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img029.jpg" width="400" height="118" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[30]</span></p> + +<h2 id="Pig-Betty">Pig-Betty<br /> +<small><span class="smcap">By M<sup>rs</sup>. Molesworth</span></small> +</h2> + +<h3>PART I.</h3> + +<div id="img030"> +<div id="img030a"> </div> +<div id="img030b"> </div> +<div id="img030c"> </div> +<div id="img030d"> </div> + +<p><span class="hide">I </span><span class="bold">AM</span> going to tell you a story that mother told us. <i>We</i> think +mother's stories far the most interesting and nicest of any we hear or +read. And we are trying to write them all down, so that our children, +if ever any of us have any, may know them too. We mean to call them +"Grandmother's Stories." One reason why they are nice is, that nearly +all of them are real, what is called "founded on fact." By the time +<i>our</i> children come to hear them, mother says her stories will all +have grown dreadfully old-fashioned, but we tell her that will make +them all the nicer. They will have a scent of long-ago-ness about +them, something like the<span class="pagenum">[31]</span> faint lavendery whiff that comes out of +mother's old doll-box, where she keeps a few of the toys and dolls' +clothes she has never had the heart to part with.</p> + +<p>The little story, or "sketch"—mother says it isn't worth calling a +"story"—I am going to write down now, is already a long-ago one. For +it isn't really one of mother's own stories; it was told her by <i>her</i> +mother, so if ever our book comes to exist, this one will have to have +a chapter to itself and be called "<i>Great</i>-grandmother's Story," won't +it? I remember quite well what made mother tell it us. It was when we +were staying in the country one year, and Francie had been frightened, +coming through the village, by meeting a poor idiot boy who ran after +us and laughed at us in a queer silly way. I believe he meant to +please us, but Francie's fright made her angry, and she wanted nurse +to speak to him sharply and tell him to get away, but nurse wouldn't.</p> + +<p>"One should always be gentle to those so afflicted," she said.</p> + +</div><!--img030--> + +<p>When we got home we told mother about it, and Francie asked her to +speak to nurse, adding, "It's very disagreeable to see people like +that about. <i>I</i> think they should always be shut up, don't you, +mother?"</p> + +<p>"Not always," mother replied. "Of course, when they are at all +dangerous, likely to hurt themselves or any one else, it is necessary +to shut them up. And if they can be taught anything, as some can be, +it is the truest kindness to send them to an asylum, where it is +wonderful what patience and skill can sometimes make of them.<span class="pagenum">[32]</span> But I +know about that boy in the village. He is perfectly harmless, even +gentle and affectionate. He has been at a school for such as he, and +has learnt to knit—that is the only thing they could succeed in +teaching him. It was no use leaving him there longer, and he pined for +home most sadly. So as his relations are pretty well off, it was +thought best to send him back, and he is now quite content. I wish I +had told you about him. When you meet him again you must be sure to +speak kindly—they say he never forgets if any one does so."</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img032.jpg" width="566" height="356" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[33]</span></p> + +<p>"Poor boy," said Ted and I; but Francie did not look quite convinced.</p> + +<p>"I think he should be shut up," she repeated, in rather a low voice. +Francie used to be a very obstinate little girl. "And <i>I</i> shan't speak +to him kindly or any way."</p> + +<p>Mother did not answer, though she heard. I know she did. But in a +minute or two she said:</p> + +<p>"Would you like to hear a story about an idiot, that your grandmother +told me? It happened when she was a little girl."</p> + +<p>Of course we all said "yes," with eagerness.</p> + +<p>And this was the story.</p> + +<p>"'Pig-Betty' isn't a very pretty name for a story, or for a person, is +it? But Pig-Betty was a real person, though I daresay none of you have +the least idea what the word 'pig' added to her own name meant," said +mother. No, none of us had. We thought, perhaps, it was because this +"Betty" was very lazy, or greedy or even dirty, but mother shook her +head at all those guesses. And then she went on to explain. "Pig," in +some parts of Scotland, she told us, means a piece of coarse crockery. +It is used mostly for jugs, though in a general way it means any sort +of crockery. "And long ago," mother went on—I think I'll give up +putting 'mother said,' or 'mother went on,' and just tell it straight +off, as she did.</p> + +<p>Long ago then, when <i>my</i> mother was a little girl, she and her +brothers and sisters used to spend some months of every year in<span class="pagenum">[34]</span> a +rather out-of-the-way part of Scotland. There was no railway and no +"coach," that came within at all easy reach. The nearest town was ten +or twelve miles away, and even the village was two or three. And a +good many things, ordinary, common things, were supplied by pedlars, +who walked long distances, often carrying their wares upon their +backs. These pedlars came to be generally called by what they had to +sell, as a sort of nickname. You may think it was a<span class="pagenum">[35]</span> very hard life, +but there were a good many nice things about it. They were always sure +of a welcome, for it was a pleasant excitement in the quiet life of +the cottages and farm-houses, and even of the big houses about, when +one of these travelling merchants appeared; and they never needed to +feel any anxiety about their board and lodging. They could always +count upon a meal or two and on a night's shelter. Very often they +slept in the barn of the farm-house—or even sometimes in a clean +corner of the cows' "byre." They were not very particular.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img034.jpg" width="576" height="422" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>Among these good people there were both men and women, and poor +Pig-Betty was one of the latter.</p> + +<p>My mother and the other children used always to ask as one of their +first questions when they arrived at Greystanes—that was the name of +their uncle's country house—on their yearly visit, if Pig-Betty had +been there lately, or if she was expected to come soon. One or other +was pretty sure to be the case.</p> + +<div id="img036"> +<div id="img036a"> </div> +<div id="img036b"> </div> +<div id="img036c"> </div> +<div id="img036d"> </div> + +<p>They had several reasons for their interest in the old woman. One was +that they were very fond of blowing soap-bubbles, which they seldom +got leave to do in town, and they always bought a new supply of white +clay pipes the first time Pig-Betty appeared; another was that she had +what children thought very wonderful treasures hidden among the coarse +pots and dishes and jugs that she carried in a shapeless bundle on her +bent old back. And sometimes, if she were in a very good humour, she +would present one of the little people<span class="pagenum">[36]</span> with a green parrot rejoicing +in a whistle in its tail, or with a goggle-eyed dog, reminding one of +the creatures in Hans Andersen's tale of "The Three Soldiers." And the +third reason was perhaps the strongest, though the strangest of all.</p> + +</div><!--img036--> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[37]</span></p> + +<h3>PART II.</h3> + +<div id="img037" class="clearboth"> +<div id="img037a"> </div> +<div id="img037b"> </div> +<div id="img037c"> </div> +<div id="img037d"> </div> + +<p><span class="hide">The </span><span class="bold">THIRD</span> reason why the children were so interested in the old pedlar +woman was, I said, the strongest, though the strangest of all. She was +an idiot! They were almost too young to understand what being an idiot +really meant, but they could see for themselves that she was quite +unlike other people, and her strangeness gave her a queer charm and +attraction for them—almost what is called "fascination." When she was +at Greystanes, where she always stayed two or three days, they were +never at a loss for amusement, for they did little else than run here +and there to peep at her and tell over to each other the odd way she +trotted about, nodding and shaking her head and talking on to herself +as if she were holding long conversations. It did not do to let her +see they were watching her, for it would have made her angry.<span class="pagenum">[38]</span> Indeed, +several times the children had been warned not to do so, and their +nurse had been told to keep them out of the old woman's way; but, as +everybody knows, children are contradictory creatures, and in the +country, nurse could not keep as close a look out on them as in town. +Then it was well known that Pig-Betty was very gentle, even when she +was angry—and she did have fits of temper sometimes—she had never +been known to hurt anyone.</p> + +</div><!--img037--> + +<p>And, of course, she was not quite without sense. She was able to +manage her little trade well enough and to see that she was paid +correctly for the "pigs" she sold. She was able, too, to tell the +difference<span class="pagenum">[39]</span> between Sunday and other days, for on Sunday she would +never "travel," and would often, if she were near a village, creep +into the "kirk" and sit in a corner quite quietly. Perhaps "idiot" is +hardly the right word to use about her, for there were a few old folk +who said they had been told that she had not always been quite so +strange and "wanting," but that a great trouble or sorrow that had +happened in her family had made her so. The truth was that no one knew +her real story. She had wandered into our part of the country from a +long way off, thirty or forty years ago, and as people had been kind +to her, there she had stayed. No one knew how old she was. Uncle +James, himself an elderly man, said she had not changed the least all +the years he had known her.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img038.jpg" width="566" height="390" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>Uncle James was one of the people she had a great affection for. She +would stand still whenever he passed her with a kindly, "Well, Betty, +my woman, and how are ye?" bobbing a kind of queer curtsey till he was +out of sight, and murmuring blessings on the "laird." He never forgot +her when she was at Greystanes, always giving orders that the poor +body should be made comfortable and have all she wanted.</p> + +<p>One of his little kindnesses to her was the cause of a good deal of +excitement to the children when they were with Uncle James. At that +time gentlepeople dined much earlier than they do now, especially in +the country. At Greystanes four o'clock was the regular dinner hour. +The children used always to be nicely dressed and sent down "to +dessert." And when Pig-Betty was there, Uncle James<span class="pagenum">[40]</span> never failed to +pour out a glass of wine and say, "Now, who will take this to the old +woman?"</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img040.jpg" width="600" height="421" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>Pig-Betty knew it was coming, for she always managed to be in the +kitchen at that time, and however busy the servants were, they never +thought of turning her out. There was a good deal of superstitious awe +felt about her, in spite of her gentleness; and the children would +look at each other, half-wishing, half-fearing to be the cup-bearer.</p> + +<p>"I will," Johnny would say; and as soon as he spoke all the others +followed.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[41]</span></p> + +<p>"No, let me," Hughie would cry, and then Maisie and Lily joined in +with their "I will," or "Do let me, Uncle James."</p> + +<div id="img041" class="clearboth"> +<div id="img041a"> </div> +<div id="img041b"> </div> + +<p>"First come, first served," Uncle would reply, as he handed the +well-filled glass to Johnny or Maisie, or whichever had been the +first. Then the procession of five would set off, walking slowly, so +as not to spill the wine, down the long stone passages leading to the +kitchen and offices of the old house. And what usually happened was +this.</p> + +<p>As they got to the kitchen door, Johnny—supposing it was he who was +carrying the wine—would go more and more slowly.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[42]</span></p> + +<p>"I don't mind, after all, letting <i>you</i> give it, Maisie," or "Hughie," +he would say.</p> + +</div><!--img041--> + +<p>"No, thank you, Johnny," they would meekly reply. And Lily, who was +the most outspoken, would confess,</p> + +<p>"I always <i>think</i> I'd like to give it her, but I do get <i>so</i> +frightened when I see her close to me, that I really daren't," which +was in truth the feeling of all four!</p> + +<p>So it was pretty sure to end by number five coming to the front. +Number five was little Annette, the youngest. She was a sweet, +curly-haired maiden, too sunny and merry herself to know what fear +meant.</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i>'ll dive it poor old Pig-Betty," she always cried, and so she did. +Inside the kitchen the glass was handed to her, and she trotted up to +the old woman in her corner with it, undismayed by the near sight of +the queer wizened old face, like a red and yellow withered apple, and +the bright piercing eyes, to be seen at the end, as it were, of a sort +of overhanging archway of shawls and handkerchiefs and queer frilled +headpiece under all, which Betty managed in some mysterious way to +half bury herself in.</p> + +<p>She always murmured blessings on the child as she drank the wine, and +no doubt this little ceremony was the beginning of her devotion to the +baby of the family.</p> + +<p>This devotion was made still greater by what happened one day.</p> + +<p>There were unkind and thoughtless people at Greystanes as well as<span class="pagenum">[43]</span> +everywhere else. And one summer there came some "new folk" to live in +one of the cottages inhabited by Uncle James's farm-labourers. This +did not often happen, as he seldom changed his people. These strangers +were from some distance, and had never happened to come across the +poor half-witted old woman, and there were two or three rough boys in +the family who were spoilt and wild, and who thought themselves far +above the country people, as they had lived for some time in a small +town. And so one day—Oh, dear! I am getting this chapter of mother's +story too long. I must begin a new one.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img043.jpg" width="350" height="126" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[44]</span></p> + +<h3>PART III.</h3> + +<p class="dropcap">W<span class="smcap bold">ell</span>, one day, as I was saying, the children, who had not seen old +Betty for several weeks, were on their way to the village—two miles +off—when near the corner of a lane, they heard a great noise. Loud +voices and jeering laughter, and a kind of strange shrill shrieking, +which made them stare at each other in wonder and almost fear. Nurse +was not with them, they were to meet her further down the road, as she +had gone on first with a message to a woman who was ill.</p> + +<p>"What can it be?" said Maisie.</p> + +<p>They hurried on to see, and the mystery was soon explained. There in +the midst of a little group of boys, and two or three girls also, I am +afraid, stood the poor old idiot. She was convulsed with rage, +screaming, shrieking, almost foaming with fury, while first one then +another darted forward and gave a pull to her skirts or jacket from +behind, and as quickly as she turned, a fresh tormentor would catch at +her from the other side, all shouting together at the top of their +voices, "Wha is't this time, my Leddy Betty? Thaur, ye have him noo."</p> + +<p>They were not <i>hurting</i> her, but it was the insult she felt so keenly, +for she was used to respectful treatment. The Simpson boys, the new +comers, were in the front of the fray, of course.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[45]</span></p> + +<p>For a moment the five Greystanes children stood speechless with +horror. Then Johnny darted to the idiot's side, he did it with the +best intentions, but Betty, confused and blinded, did not distinguish +him from the others, and dealt him a blow which sent him staggering +back, as she howled out to him, "Ye ill-faured loon, tak' that."</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img045.jpg" width="600" height="382" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Run, Johnny, run," shrieked Maisie, which Hughie and Lill, who were +twins and always kept together, had already done, not out of cowardice +but in search of help. But little Annette rushed forward.</p> + +<p>"Bad boys that you are," she shouted with her little shrill baby voice +that seemed to have suddenly grown commanding, "off with you.<span class="pagenum">[46]</span> You +shall not torment my guid auld Betty." For though the children's +mother was most careful that their speech should be "English," strong +excitement would bring out their native tongue. And as the child +uttered the last words she flung her arms round the poor woman, who, +weak and feeble as soon as her fury began to lessen, tottered to the +ground, where they clung together—the sorrow-crushed aged creature +and the cherub-faced child—sobbing in each other's arms. For +Pig-Betty had known her little friend in an instant.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img046.jpg" width="552" height="388" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"My bonny wee leddy," she murmured, "auld Betty's ain wee leddy," and +with her trembling fingers she untied the knotted corners of her +bundle of "pigs," and searching for the best of her treasures, the +best and biggest of her "whustling polls," she stuffed it into +Annette's hands.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[47]</span></p> + +<p>Strange to say the ruffianly group had already dispersed and were not +again seen!</p> + +<p>It was soon after that that the children went back again for the +winter to their London home. Next year saw them once more in the +north, and as nurse unpacked their trunks she came upon the green +parrot, which Annette would never part from.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if Pig-Betty's still alive," she said.</p> + +<p>Oh yes—so far as was known at Greystanes, she was rambling about as +usual, but she had not been there for some weeks. Fortunately for the +children, however, it was near the time for her visit, as you shall +hear.</p> + +<p>A few days after their arrival they were all out together, when they +happened to pass by a cottage, whose owner was famed for a very choice +breed of dogs he kept.</p> + +<p>"Let's peep over the wall into Sandy's yard, and see if he has any new +puppies," said Johnny, and they all did so. No, there were no puppies +to be seen, only an older dog which the boys remembered by the name of +"Jock," and they called out to him.</p> + +<p>But Jock took no heed. He was moving about the little enclosure in a +queer, restless way, his head hanging down, his tail between his legs.</p> + +<p>"Poor Jock," said Hughie, "how dull he looks! What a shame of Sandy to +have gone out and left him alone!" For evidently there was no one at +home in the cottage. Truth to tell, Sandy was off for the dog-doctor.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[48]</span></p> + +<p>"Let's let him out," said Johnny, "and cheer him up a bit. He'll know +us once he's out."</p> + +<p>They did not hear a quick but shuffling step up the lane, nor a +panting, quavering voice, "Bairns, bairns, dinna ye——"</p> + +<p>It was Pig-Betty, just arrived that morning, and left by Sandy in +charge of his cottage and the suspiciously suffering Jock—a charge +she was quite able for.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img048.jpg" width="600" height="288" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Let no one gang near him," Sandy had said; "and, my woman, just ye +sit at the gate there till I'm back. I'll no be lang."</p> + +<p>But, alas, the children had come round by the fields behind the +cottage.</p> + +<p>It was too late—the yard gate was opened, and Jock, after sniffing +and turning about came slowly out.</p> + +<p>"Poor old Jockie," said Annette, always fearless, stooping to stroke +him.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[49]</span></p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img049.jpg" width="600" height="318" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>He turned upon her with a dreadful growl, he was not yet quite mad, +but the poison was in him. And in another instant the deadly fangs +would have been in the baby's tender flesh, but for the well-aimed +blow which flung the dog back, though only for a moment. It was Betty, +dashing at him with her bundle of "pigs," the only weapon at hand—the +poor pigs smashing and crashing; but they only diverted Jock's attack. +When Sandy and the dog-doctor came rushing up, she was on the ground, +and Jock had already bitten her in two or three places. But all she +said was, "My wee leddy, haud him aff my wee leddy."</p> + +<p>And they were able to secure him, so that no one else was bitten.</p> + +<p>No, Betty did not die of hydrophobia. She lived for a few months, not +longer, her old nerves and feeble frame had got their death blow.<span class="pagenum">[50]</span> But +she was tenderly cared for in a peaceful corner of the hospital at the +neighbouring town. Uncle James and the children's parents took care +that she should want for nothing, and as her bodily strength failed +her mind seemed to clear. When little Annette was taken to say +good-bye to the brave old woman, poor Pig-Betty was able to whisper a +word or two of loving hope that she and her "wee leddy" might meet +again—in the Better Land.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img050.jpg" width="300" height="115" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[51]</span></p> + +<h2 id="THE_DORMOUSES_MISTAKE">THE DORMOUSE'S MISTAKE.</h2> + +<p class="dropcap">T<span class="smcap bold">hey</span> lived at the corner of the common. Papa, Mamma, Fuzz and +Brown-ears, Snip and Peepy, their four children. It was a lovely place +to live at, but as they had never seen any other part of the world, I +am not sure that they thought it quite so delightful as they might +otherwise have done. The children, that is to say—Papa and Mamma of +course were wiser. They had <i>heard</i> of very different sorts of places +where some poor dormice had to live; small cooped-up nests called +cages, out of which they were never allowed to run about, or to enjoy +the delightful summer sunshine, and go foraging for hazel nuts and +haws, and other delicacies, for themselves. For an ancestor of theirs +had once been taken prisoner and shut up in a cage, whence, wonderful +to say, he had escaped and got back to the woods again, where he +became a great personage among dormice, and was even occasionally +requested to give lectures in public to the squirrels and water-rats, +and moles and rabbits, and other forest-folk, describing the strange +and marvellous things he had seen and heard during his captivity. He +had learnt to understand human talk for one thing, and had taught it +to his children; and his great-grandson, the Papa of Fuzz and +Brown-ears, Snip and Peepy, had begun to give them lessons in this +foreign language in their turn, for, as<span class="pagenum">[52]</span> he wisely remarked, there was +no saying if it might not turn out useful some day.</p> + +<p>The cold weather set in very early this year. Already, for some days, +Fuzz and Brown-ears, Snip and Peepy had begun to feel a curious +heaviness stealing over them now and then; they did not seem inclined +to turn out in the morning, and were very glad when one evening their +mother told them that the store cupboards being now quite full, they +need none of them get up the next day at all unless they were +inclined.</p> + +<p>"For my part," she added, "I cannot keep awake any longer, nor can +your Papa. We are going to roll ourselves up to-night. You young folk +may keep awake a week or two longer perhaps, but if this frost +continues, I doubt it. So good-night, my dears, for a month or two; +the first mild day we shall all rouse up, never fear, and have a good +meal before we snooze off again."</p> + +<p>And sure enough next morning, when the young people turned out a good +deal later than usual, Papa and Mamma were as fast asleep as the seven +sleepers in the old story, which had given their name to the German +branch of the dormouse family! Fuzz and Brown-ears, Snip and Peepy +felt rather strange and lonely; two round furry balls seemed a very +queer sort of exchange for their active, bright-eyed father and +mother. But as there was plenty to eat they consoled themselves after +a bit, and got through the next two or three weeks pretty comfortably, +every day feeling more and more drowsy, till at last came a morning +on<span class="pagenum">[53]</span> which six neat little brown balls instead of two lay in a row—the +dormouse family had begun their winter repose. And all was quiet and +silent in the cosy nest among the twigs of the low-growing bushes at +the corner of the common.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img053.jpg" width="600" height="474" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>It seemed as if winter had really come. For three or four weeks there +was but little sunshine even in the middle of the day, and in the +mornings and evenings the air was piercingly cold.</p> + +<p>"I suppose all the poor little wood-creatures have begun their winter<span class="pagenum">[54]</span> +sleep," said Cicely Gray one afternoon as she was hastening home from +the village by a short cut through the trees. "I must say I rather +envy them."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> don't," said her brother, "I shouldn't like to lose half my life. +Hush, Cicely, there's a rabbit. What a jolly little fellow! How he +scuds along! There's another, two, three! Oh, Cis, I do hope I shall +get some shooting when I come home at Christmas."</p> + +<p>Cicely sighed. "I hate shooting," she said. "I'm sure it would be +better to sleep half one's life than to stay awake to be shot."</p> + +<p>But it was too cold to linger talking. The brother and sister set off +running, so that their cheeks were glowing and their eyes sparkling by +the time they got to the Hall gates.</p> + +<p>Three days later Harry had gone off to school. Cicely missed him very +much; especially as a most pleasant and unexpected change had come +over the weather. A real "St. Martin's summer" had set in. What +delightful walks and rambles Harry and she could have had, thought +Cicely, if only it had come a little sooner!</p> + +<p>The mild air found its way into the nest where the six little brown +balls lay side by side, till at first one, then another, then all six +slowly unrolled themselves, stretched their little paws, unclosed +their eyes, and began to look about them.</p> + +<p>"Time for our first winter dinner," said Mrs. Dormouse sleepily; "it's +all ready over there in the corner under the oak leaves. Help +yourselves my dears, eat as much as you can; you'll sleep all the +better<span class="pagenum">[55]</span> for it. And don't be long about it; it's as much as I can do +to keep my eyes open."</p> + +<p>Mr. Dormouse and the others followed her advice. For a few minutes +nothing was heard but the little nibbling and cracking sounds which +told that a raid had been made on the winter stores.</p> + +<p>"Good-night again, my dears," said Papa, who was still sleepier than +Mamma.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img055.jpg" width="508" height="286" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Good-night" was repeated in various tones, but one little voice +interrupted—it was that of Fuzz.</p> + +<p>"I'm not sleepy, Papa and Mamma; I'm not a bit sleepy. I'm sure it's +time to wake up, and that the summer's come back again. Brown-ears, +Snip and Peepy, won't you come out with me? Papa and Mamma can sleep a +little longer if they like."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," Mrs. Dormouse said sleepily.</p> + +<p>And "Nonsense, brother," repeated the others, "don't disturb us."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[56]</span></p> + +<p>But Fuzz was obstinate and sure he knew best.</p> + +<p>He trotted off, looking back contemptuously at the five balls already +rolled up again.</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear! how silly they are to be sure," he said, when he found +himself out on the grass. "Why, it's certainly summer again! The +sunshine's so bright and warm, the birds are chirping so merrily. I +feel quite brisk. I think I'll take a ramble over the common to the +wood where our cousins the squirrels live, and hear what they have to +say about it."</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img056.jpg" width="500" height="257" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>He cocked his ears and peeped about with his little sparkling eyes. +Suddenly he caught sight of something white at the foot of one of the +old trees. It was Cicely Gray in her summer flannel, which had been +pulled out of the wardrobe again to do honour to St. Martin.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, little dormouse," she said in her pretty soft voice, +"what are you doing out of your nest in late November? Do you think +summer's come back again already, my little man? If so, you've made<span class="pagenum">[57]</span> a +great mistake. Take warning, and don't stray far from your home, or +you may find yourself in a sad plight. This lovely weather can't last +many days."</p> + +<p>Fuzz looked at her.</p> + +<div id="img057"> +<div id="img057a"> </div> +<div id="img057b"> </div> + +<p>"Thank you, miss," he replied, for, you see, he understood human talk, +though it is to be doubted if Cicely understood <i>him</i>. "She must +surely know," he reflected wisely, "and perhaps after all mamma was in +the right."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[58]</span></p> + +<p>So he scampered in to the nest again and rolled himself up beside the +others.</p> + +<p>That very evening the wind changed; the cold set in in earnest, and +for three months it was really severe.</p> + +</div><!--imb057--> + +<p>"I saw a little dormouse at the corner of the common yesterday," said +Cicely the next morning. "I advised him to go home again; he had come +out by mistake, thinking winter was over."</p> + +<p>"You funny girl," said her mother. "I hope he understood you and +followed your advice, poor little chap."</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img058.jpg" width="350" height="124" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[59]</span></p> + +<h2 id="THE_CHRISTMAS_GUEST">THE CHRISTMAS GUEST.<br /> +<small>FROM A TRUE INCIDENT.</small></h2> + +<p class="dropcap">S<span class="smcap bold">he</span> was a very poor little girl, very poor indeed; often—indeed +almost always—hungry, and thinly-clad, and delicate, but yet not +altogether miserable. No, far from it, for she had a loving mother who +did her poor best for her children. There were three or four of them +and Emmy was the eldest. She was only six, but she was looked upon as +almost grown-up, for father had died last year, and Emmy had to help +mother with "the little ones," as she always called them.</p> + +<p>They lived in a single room in one of the poorest and most crowded +parts of great London; in a street which was filled with houses of +one-room homes like their own. There was much misery and much +wickedness, I fear, too, in their neighbourhood; drinking, and +swearing, and fighting, as well as hunger, and cold, and sickness. But +compared with several years ago, when Emmy's mother herself had been a +girl living in much such a home as she now strove "to keep together" +for her fatherless babies, compared with that time, as she, and others +too, used often to say, "it was a deal better." There was less +drinking and bad language; there was less misery. For friends—friends +able and<span class="pagenum">[60]</span> earnestly anxious to help—had taken up their abode in the +very next street to little Emmy's; the church had been "done up +beautiful," and <i>there</i> there was always a welcome and a rest from the +troubles and worries at home; and the clergyman, as well as the kind +ladies who had come to live among their toiling, struggling brothers +and sisters, knew all about everybody and everything, knew who was ill +and who was out of work, knew who were "trying to be good" even among +the children, knew even the +<a id="tt"></a> +<a href="#tn" + class="correction" + title="Original was "tiniest trots by name""> + tiniest tots by name +</a>, +and had always a +kind word and smile, however busy and hurried they were.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img060.jpg" width="600" height="486" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[61]</span></p> + +<p>And, thanks greatly to these kind friends, Emmy's life was not without +its pleasures. She loved the infant school on Sundays, she loved the +"treats"; once last summer—and Emmy was old enough now to remember +last summer well, though it seemed a very long time ago—there had +been a treat into the country, a real day in the country, where, for +the first time in her life, the child saw grass and trees.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img class="wrapr" src="images/img061.jpg" width="300" height="474" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>But it was far from summer time now, it was midwinter. Christmas was +close at hand, and winter had brought more than its usual troubles to +the little family. There were worse things this year than cold and +scant food, chapped hands and chilblained feet. Tiny, as they called +the baby but one, was very ill with bronchitis, the doctor could not +say if she would get better, and sometimes it seemed to the poor +mother as if it was hardly to be wished that she should.</p> + +<p>"She suffers so, poor dear, and seeing to her hinders me sadly with<span class="pagenum">[62]</span> +my work. I do feel as if I'd break down at last altogether," she said +one evening—it was Christmas Eve—to a neighbour who had looked in to +see how things were going on.</p> + +<p>"And Emmy's looking pale," said the visitor, "she wants cheering up a +bit too. Let her come to church with me for a change. I'm going to the +evening service now."</p> + +<p>Emmy brightened up at this. She had not been at church last Sunday, +and, like most children, she was especially fond of going in the +evening. It seemed grander and more solemn somehow, when all was dark +outside. And the lights and warmth, and above all the music, were very +pleasant to the little girl. So with a parting word of advice to the +mother to keep up heart a bit longer—"things allus starts mending +when they get to the worst"—the kind neighbour set off, holding Emmy +by the hand.</p> + +<p>It was beautiful in church, the Christmas "dressing up," as Emmy +called it, had been completed that afternoon; to the child it seemed a +sort of fairy-land, though of fairy-land she had never heard. But she +had heard of heaven, which was better.</p> + +<p>"It could scarce be finer there," she thought to herself dreamily, as +she listened to the words of the service with a feeling that all was +sweet and beautiful, though she could actually understand but little.</p> + +<p>The sermon was short and simple. But Emmy was getting sleepy, and the +thought of poor mother, and Tiny with her hacking cough, mingled with +what she heard, till suddenly something caught her ear which startled +her into attention. The preacher had been speaking of<span class="pagenum">[63]</span> the first +Christmas-day, concluding with some words about the morrow, when again +the whole Christian world would join in welcoming their Lord. For +"again He will come to us; again Jesus Himself will be here in the +midst of us, ready as ever to listen to our prayers, to comfort and +console."</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img class="wrapr" src="images/img063.jpg" width="300" height="484" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>Emmy was wide awake now. She scarcely heard the words of the carol, +she was in a fever of eager hopefulness.</p> + +<p>"<i>What</i> a good thing I came to-night," she said to herself, "else I +mightn't ever have knowed it. I <i>would</i> like to see Him first of all. +There'll be such a many, and He'll have such a deal to do. But it +wouldn't take Him that long to come round with me to see Tiny, and if +He does, like in the story, He'll cure her in 'alf a minute. I know +what I'll do"—and a little scheme formed itself in the childish +mind—"though I'll not tell mother," thought Emmy, "just for fear +like, I should be too late to catch Him."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[64]</span></p> + +<p>"'Twas a lovely sermon, and so touchin' too," said Emmy's friend to +another woman as they walked home.</p> + +<p>"It strengthens one up a bit, it do," agreed her companion. "I'll try +my best to be round for the seven o'clock service in the morning."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[65]</span></p> + +<p>"Seven o'clock in the morning!" said Emmy to herself. "I'll best be +here soon after six."</p> + +<p>Christmas morning was <i>very</i> cold. There was some frozen snow lying +hard and still white in the streets, and there was moonlight, pale and +clear. So it was light enough for one of the Sisters, entering the +church betimes, to distinguish a little figure curled up darkly in the +porch. A thrill of fear ran through her for a moment. Supposing it +were some poor child turned out by a drunken father, as sometimes +happened, frozen to death this bitter night? But no—the small +creature started to its feet.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img064.jpg" width="600" height="595" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Is it He? Has Jesus come?" she exclaimed. "Oh! do let me speak to Him +first."</p> + +<p>"My child!" exclaimed the sister, "what is it? Have you been dreaming? +Why, it is little Emmy Day. Have you been here all night?"</p> + +<p>"No, no," Emmy replied, her teeth chattering with cold, and the sob of +a half-feared disappointment in her voice. "No, no; I slipped out +while mother and all was still asleep. I'm waiting to ask Him to come +to our Tiny;" and she went on to tell what she had heard last night, +and what she had planned and hoped.</p> + +<p>Her friend took her into her own room for a few minutes, and there +gently and tenderly explained to Emmy her sweet mistake. And though +her tears could not all at once be stopped, the little girl trotted +back to her mother with comfort in her heart, and strange and +wonderful, yet beautiful new thoughts in her mind.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[66]</span></p> + +<p>"He is <i>always</i> near, I can <i>always</i> pray to Him," she whispered to +herself.</p> + +<p>And her prayers were answered. Tiny recovered, and thanks to the kind +Sisters, that Christmas Day was the beginning of better things for the +little family.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img066.jpg" width="340" height="140" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[67]</span></p> + +<h2 id="OLIVES_TEA-PARTY">OLIVE'S TEA-PARTY.</h2> + +<div class="center"> +<img class="wrap" src="images/img067.jpg" width="243" height="280" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p><br /><span class="hide">"M</span><span class="smcap bold">amma</span>," said Olive one day, "I want to have a tea party."</p> + +<p>"Well, dear," mamma answered, "I dare say it could be managed. You +must talk to Cara and Louie about it, and settle whom you would all +like to ask."</p> + +<p>"No, no," said Olive, "I don't mean that. I won't have my sisters, +mamma. They like to ask big ones, and I want a party for my own self, +and no big ones. I want to fix everything myself, and I won't have +Cara and Louie telling us what to eat at tea, and what games to play +at. You may tell aunty to 'avite them to her house that day, mamma, +and let me have my own party; else I won't have it at all."</p> + +<p>Olive was eight. She was the youngest of three. It oftens happens that +the "youngest of three" fancies herself "put upon," especially when +the two elders are very near of an age and together in everything. But +this sudden stand for independence was new in Olive.<span class="pagenum">[68]</span> Mamma looked at +her curiously. Had some foolish person been putting nonsense in her +little girl's head?</p> + +<p>"Cara and Louie are always kind to you about your little pleasures, +Olive," she said. "I don't understand why you should all at once want +to do without them."</p> + +<p>Olive wriggled. "But I do," she said. "Lily Farquhar says her big +sisters spoil her parties so, and they call her and her friends 'the +babies,' and laugh at them."</p> + +<p>"Are you going to invite Lily to your party?" asked mamma.</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course. She's my best friend, and she knows lots of games."</p> + +<p>"Very well. Then fix your day and invite your friends, and I will take +care that your sisters don't interfere."</p> + +<p>Olive looked very pleased. "I think next Wednesday would do," she +said. "It's our half-holiday, and if Cara will help me on Tuesday +evening I can get my lessons done, so that I needn't do any on +Wednesday. It's <i>howid</i> to have to do lessons after a party," added +Olive, with a languid air.</p> + +<p>But mamma took her up more sharply than she expected. "Nay, nay, +Olive," she said, "that won't do. If your sisters are to have none of +the <i>pleasure</i> of your party, you can't expect them to take any +trouble. You must manage your lessons as best you can."</p> + +<p>Olive pouted, but did not dare to say anything. Truth to tell, her +lessons at no time sat very heavily on her mind.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[69]</span></p> + +<p>"It won't be my fault if I don't do them on Wednesday," she said to +herself. "It'll be Cara's, and—and mamma's—so I don't care."</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img069.jpg" width="450" height="261" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>She found the writing the invitations more trouble than she had +expected, and more than once did she wish she could have applied for +help to Louie, whose handwriting was so clear and pretty, and who +possessed such "ducky" little sheets of note-paper of all colours, +with a teapot and "come early" in one corner. Olive's epistles were +rather a sight to be seen; nearly all of them were blotted, and the +spelling of some of her friends' names was peculiar, to say the least. +Still they did their purpose, for in the course of the next day or two +the little hostess received answers, all accepting her "kind +invitation," except poor Amabel Pryce, who had so bad a sore-throat +that there was no chance of her being able to go out by Wednesday. And +in one note—from a little girl called Maggie Vernon—was something +which did not suit Olive's present frame of mind at all.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[70]</span></p> + +<p>"Harriot and I," wrote Maggie—Harriot was Maggie's sister—"will be +so pleased to come. We love a party at your house, because your big +sisters are always so kind."</p> + +<p>Olive showed this to her adviser and confidante, Lily.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," said Lily, "she only puts that in because she thinks it +looks polite. She's a goose, and so is Harriot; they make such a fuss +about each other. They haven't the least bit of independence. Well, +never mind. If they don't like <i>your</i> party, Olive, they needn't come +again."</p> + +<p>Olive felt consoled. But still—in her heart of hearts there was some +misgiving. What should she do if they all wanted to play different +games?—or if Bessy Grey tore her frock or spilt her tea and got one +of her crying fits, as happened sometimes, and there was no one—no +Cara or Louie to pet the nervous little girl into quiet and content +again? What should she do, if——? But Lily did not leave her time to +conjure up any more misfortunes.</p> + +<p>"What are you in a brown study about, Olive?" she said. "You <i>are</i> so +stupid sometimes."</p> + +<p>To which Olive retorted sharply, and the friends ended their council +of war by a quarrel, which did not raise Olive's spirits.</p> + +<p>The great day came. Not very much had been said about it in the family +circle, naturally, for when one member of the family chooses to "set +up" for himself or herself, and keep all the rest "out of it," there +cannot be as much pleasant talk as when everybody is joined together +in<span class="pagenum">[71]</span> the interest and preparation. And Olive could not help a little +sigh when, just before her guests came, she was called down to the +dining-room to see the tea all set out. It did look so nice! Mamma had +ordered just the cakes and buns Olive liked, and there were two or +three pretty plants on the table, and everything was just perfect.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img071.jpg" width="450" height="393" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"I would have liked Cara and Louie to see it," thought Olive. "They +needn't have gone out quite so early."</p> + +<p>But the sound of the front-door bell ringing made her start. She ran +off quickly to be ready in the school-room to receive her little +friends. There were six of them. Lily Farquhar, of course, first and +foremost; then Maggie and Harriot, Bessie Grey looking rather +frightened and very shy, and two little cousins, Mary and Augusta +Meadowes, who lived next door.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[72]</span></p> + +<p>They all knew each other pretty well, so they were not <i>very</i> silent +or stiff. Still as Olive could not speak to everybody at once, and was +very anxious that no one should feel neglected, she was not sorry when +the tea-bell rang. Lily was to pour out the chocolate, and Olive +herself to make the tea. It passed off pretty well, except for Lily's +spilling a good deal, and Olive's forgetting to put more water into +the teapot, so that the tea became dreadfully dark and strong. But the +cakes were approved of, and every one seemed content. Then came the +great question of "What shall we play at?" Lily, who was clever at +games, made herself a sort of leader, but she was not sensible enough +to fill the post well. She was selfish and impatient, and being only a +little girl herself, the others did not care "to be ordered about by +her." Then Bessie Grey got knocked down at Blind Man's Buff, and of +course she began to cry, and to say she wouldn't play any more if they +were so rough. Maggie Vernon tried to soothe her, but Bessie pushed +her away saying she didn't "understand," she wanted her mother, or +next best, Cara or Louie, who were always "so kind." And the little +Meadowes, being themselves but very small people, looked as if they +were going to cry too; declaring that they would rather not play at +all if they needed to run about so very fast. So Blind Man's Buff was +given up and something quieter tried—Dumb Crambo, I think. But it was +not very successful either, the little Meadowes needed so much +"explaining," which no one was patient enough, or perhaps wise enough, +to give clearly. And Lily insisted on being first always, and there +was no one in authority to keep her "in her<span class="pagenum">[73]</span> place," where, when she +really felt she <i>must</i> stay there, she could be a pleasant and bright +little girl. So game after game came to a bad end, and as the children +grew tired and their spirits went down, things grew worse and worse, +till at last—no, I can best describe it by telling what mamma +saw—when feeling rather anxious as to the results of Olive's fit of +independence, she put her head in at the school-room door an hour or +two after tea.</p> + +<p>There was silence in the room except for the sound of subdued crying +in one corner, which came, not from Bessie Grey—that would not have +been surprising—but from the smallest Meadowes child, who had torn +her frock and refused to listen to comfort from either her sister or +Maggie. Harriot stood close by, and ran forward as the door opened.</p> + +<p>"Oh, has our nurse come?" she said eagerly. "She's so kind, I'm sure +she'd mend Gussie's frock, and then <i>her</i> nurse wouldn't scold."</p> + +<p>"Our nurse isn't cross really," said Mary. "It's only that Gussie's +silly. I think she's too little to come to a party."</p> + +<p>Then catching sight of "mamma" the little girl grew red, and all the +others looked frightened—such of them as saw mamma, that is to say. +For Bessie Grey, after a long fit of sobbing, had fallen asleep on the +floor, poor child, and—what <i>do</i> you think Olive and Lily were doing? +Each with a story-book in her hand, they were comfortably reading at +different corners of the room, heedless of the other children's +dullness and tiredness.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[74]</span></p> + +<p>"I want to go home," wailed Gussie. On which Bessie suddenly awoke, +and began to cry again.</p> + +<p>"Please, Gussie <i>is</i> rather tired," said the motherly little Mary. "Do +you think we might go home without waiting for nurse, as it's so +near?"</p> + +<div id="img074"> +<div id="img074a"> </div> +<div id="img074b"> </div> + +<p>"And might we be getting our things on too?" said Maggie and Harriot.</p> + +<p>Poor Mamma! She could scarcely speak, so ashamed did she feel.</p> + +<p>"<i>Olive!</i>" she exclaimed. How Olive and Lily too did jump! "Is this +the way you take care of your guests?"</p> + +<p>"They were so stupid," murmured Olive. "And Lily would be leader, and +she was so cross. I thought it was best to leave off playing."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[75]</span></p> + +</div><!--img074--> + +<p>"Come, my poor dear children," said mamma, turning to the five little +girls. "Don't cry, Bessie dear, or you either, Gussie. We'll get your +frock mended in a minute, and Cara and Louie will give you a nice game +of musical chairs in the drawing-room to cheer you up before you go +home. There is some fruit waiting for you too."</p> + +<p>She marshalled them all off, smiles and chatter soon replacing the +tears and yawns. Mamma stopped at the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Miss Lily Farquhar," she said, quietly, "you had best remain here and +enjoy your book till you are sent for."</p> + +<p>To Olive she said not one word. But it was a very humble and penitent +little girl who came that evening to tell her mother and sisters <i>how</i> +sorry she was, and <i>how</i> foolish and selfish and ungrateful she now +saw that she had been.</p> + +<p>If Olive ever gives another tea-party I think the <i>first</i> guests she +invites will be her kind big sisters, Cara and Louie.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img075.jpg" width="346" height="136" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[76]</span></p> + +<h2 id="A_LIVE_DUMMY">A LIVE DUMMY.</h2> + +<p class="dropcap">T<span class="smcap bold">he</span> Merediths were spending the autumn on the French coast, at a +sea-bathing place called Sablons-sur-mer. It is a nice bright little +place. I am afraid the inhabitants would be offended if they heard it +called "little," for they think it a very important town! It consists +of two long streets—one facing the sea, one inland, where the shops +and the houses of the people who live there all the year round, are. +And between these two streets run smaller ones—so small that they are +more passage-ways than streets. The most imposing one is called an +"arcade"; in it are the best shops, a bazaar of all sorts of fancy +things to delight children's eyes, from tin buckets and spades to dig +with in the sands, to rocking-horses, though not of a very expensive +kind. At one corner of this arcade is a large, ready-made tailor's +establishment; this shop, for reasons I will explain to you, divided +the children's attention with the bazaar.</p> + +<p>There were ever so many Merediths; three girls and two boys and a +couple of cousins. The Sablons people are accustomed to English +visitors, so the sight of this band of children was not startling to +them; and the little <i>messieurs</i>, and the <i>jeunes mees</i>, soon had +several friends in<span class="pagenum">[77]</span> the place, whom they never passed without a +friendly nod and a <i>bon jour</i> or <i>bon soir</i>, as the case might be.</p> + +<p>The cousins I have mentioned were not with the Merediths on their +first arrival. There had been some doubt of finding a house large +enough to take the whole party in, so Bessie and Hugh had waited at +their own home in the country in England in a state of frantic +anxiety, till one fine day came a letter from their aunt with the +delightful news that the children might be despatched as soon as they +could be got ready.</p> + +<p>Bessie and Hugh had never paid a visit to France before; so the two +new-comers had plenty of "guides" to explain everything to them, and +show them the "lions" of Sablons-sur-mer. Only one condition was made +by Lilian, the eldest and nearly "grown up" Meredith girl. Bessie and +Hugh <i>must</i> manage not to seem like English tourists "gaping about +with guide-books in their hands, and looking as if they had never been +out of an English country village."</p> + +<p>"But we scarcely ever have been," said Bessie; "at least, only when we +go to grandmamma's at Cheltenham, and Hugh was once three days in +London."</p> + +<p>"That doesn't matter," said Miss Meredith; "you needn't look like some +of the English people one sees over here. I feel quite ashamed +sometimes to own them for my country people."</p> + +<p>Bessie was too much in awe of her big cousin to ask her to explain +more exactly what it was she was not to do, or to "look." But she<span class="pagenum">[78]</span> +resolved to herself to be on her very best behaviour, and Madge and +Letty assured her it would be "all right"—she needn't talk French +when there was any one who "mattered" to hear, and she needn't <i>seem</i> +as if things were strange to her, that was what Lilian minded.</p> + +<div> +<img class="wrap" src="images/img078.jpg" width="300" height="448" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Mayn't I look in at the shop-windows, even?" asked Bessie, rather +dolefully.</p> + +<p>Shop-windows were very delightful and charming to the little country +cousin.</p> + +<p>"Of course you may. Every body does," said Letty; "especially at the +bazaar. It's not windows; it's all open, you know, like stalls at a +market," explained Madge; "it's a regular bazaar. Not look at it!—why +it's <i>made</i> to be looked at. And oh; Bessie," Letty went on again, +"you <i>will</i> be amused at the big tailor's, or ready-made clothier's, +as mamma calls it, at the corner of the arcade. It's something like +Madame Tussaud's—such a lot of wax dummies at the door. And they +change their clothes every few days. Some of them are quite big, like +men; and some little boys. They've got one now which they <i>think</i> is +dressed like an English sailor-suit boy—you never saw such a +costume!<span class="pagenum">[79]</span> And there's a man in a red coat—our boys say he is meant to +be an English 'milord' dressed for 'the hunt.'"</p> + +<div> +<img class="wrapr" src="images/img079.jpg" width="300" height="447" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>When Bessie saw the bazaar she was as full of admiration of it as even +Madge and Letty could desire, especially of the big tailor's. There +was a brilliant show of figures, from the little wax boy in imaginary +English sailor costume, to a moustached gentleman elaborately got up +in evening suit, white tie and all.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how funny they are!" Bessie exclaimed. "But I don't see the one +in the red coat."</p> + +<p>"He's not there to-day," said Madge. "Perhaps we'll see him again +to-morrow, in something different."</p> + +<p>"It must be great fun dressing, and undressing them," said Bessie. "Do +they change them nearly every day?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, not so often as that. But we watch them always, to see."</p> + +<p>But for the next two or three days there was no change. Bessie looked +in vain for the red-coated one she was so curious to see.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[80]</span></p> + +<p>Now I must tell you that there was sometimes a regiment, or part of a +regiment, at Sablons. They came for rifle-practice on the sands; and +there was always a great excitement when a new detachment came in. And +a few days after Bessie and Hugh made their appearance, the town was +awakened early one morning by the tramp of a number of red-coats, who +had marched over from an inland town, where there were large barracks. +Next day on their way home, as usual, from their morning bath, the +little girls passed through the arcade. Madge and Letty did not give +the dummies more than a passing glance, till suddenly they noticed +that Bessie had stayed behind.</p> + +<div> +<img class="wrap" src="images/img080.jpg" width="250" height="411" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"There she is," said Letty; "she's staring at the figures. Why—is +that—?" and she hesitated.</p> + +<p>There she was, sure enough—Bessie, that is to say—standing in front +of a tall figure, a red-coated one in all the glory of a scarlet +uniform, and with several medals on the right breast, which the little +girl on her tip-toes was reaching up to and examining, one after +another, with great interest. Letty and Madge drew near and looked at +her with a curious misgiving. She glanced round.</p> + +<p>"Letty, Madge," she said, "do come here and look at this new dummy. +It's got a lot of medals, and——"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[81]</span></p> + +<p>She stopped with a little shriek. The "new dummy" had suddenly raised +its right arm, saluting Bessie with military precision as it stepped +slightly to one side, with the words—</p> + +<p>"<i>A votre service, Mademoiselle.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh!" gasped Bessie. "It's alive—it's—it's a man, a living +soldier."</p> + +<p>And so the supposed dummy was! A young officer, who, happening like +the children themselves to be standing in front of the tailor's +staring at the figures, had actually been mistaken by Bessie for one +of the waxen group. He had entered into the joke, and remained +perfectly motionless while the little girl made her investigation, +doubtless explaining all to himself by the fact of her being a <i>jeune +mees</i>—one of that extraordinary English nation of whom it is +impossible to say what they won't do next.</p> + +<p>Oh, how ashamed Bessie was! How scarlet grew Letty and Madge! But +there was nothing to be done. The officer had already disappeared at +the other end of the arcade with a second friendly and smiling though +respectful salute.</p> + +<p>One thought struck the three children—Susanne, the maid, was +fortunately a little in advance and had not seen the strange mistake.</p> + +<p>"<i>Don't</i> let's tell Lilian," they said. "She'd never get over it, she +really wouldn't."</p> + +<p>But mother—aunty as she was to Bessie—<i>was</i> told, and comforted the +mortified and shamefaced little girl as well as she could.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[82]</span></p> + +<p>"After all," she said, "it was nothing <i>naughty</i>; Bessie had not meant +to be rude; and she was quite sure the officer had not thought her +so."</p> + +<p>Nor had he. But it was a very amusing story to relate; and if +Bessie had been within hearing of him when he told it to his +brother-officers, I think she <i>could</i> not but have joined in their +laughter.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img082.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[83]</span></p> + +<h2 id="A_Queer_Hiding-Place">A Queer Hiding-Place</h2> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img083.jpg" width="600" height="267" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">"D<span class="smcap"><b>on't</b></span> forget to give Theresa the pound from mamma," said Mabel, as +she kissed her cousin Eleanor one afternoon when saying good-bye. "I +must be quick; it's getting quite dark, and I was to be home early. +Come along, Fred."</p> + +<p>"You're sure you've got the pound, are you, Nelly?" asked Fred +mischievously. "Mamma told Mabel about it ever so many times. She's so +famous at remembering things herself, I like hearing her tell <i>you</i> +not to forget."</p> + +<p>Eleanor put her hand into her pocket.</p> + +<p>"I <i>think</i> I've got it," she said; "I remember it was wrapped in a +piece of blue paper, wasn't it? You gave it me just before we sat down +to play our duet, and I was to say it was for aunt's subscription +to—to—oh dear, I've forgotten," and she stood there in the hall, +where she had come down to see the last of her visitors, looking the +picture of perplexity.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[84]</span></p> + +<p>"Oh, you silly girl!" said Mabel, impatiently. "It is mamma's +subscription to Theresa's Christmas dinners' card. There now, don't +you remember? You are so dreadfully absent, Eleanor!"</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img084.jpg" width="450" height="356" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"I remember now—oh yes, of course. I won't forget again," said the +girl; "little" girl one could scarcely call her, for though she was +only thirteen she was as tall as her elder sister of eighteen. +"Good-night again, Mabel. I must be quick, for I have to write to +Charley before dinner. You know I dine late just now during the +holidays," she added proudly.</p> + +<p>"But the pound—the pound itself—have you got it?" repeated Fred.</p> + +<p>Again went Eleanor's hand to her pocket.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[85]</span></p> + +<p>"Oh dear, I forgot I was feeling for the pound," she exclaimed. "Yes, +here it is! I'll give it to Theresa quite rightly, you'll see."</p> + +<p>Eleanor hurried away to write her letter to Charley, for to-morrow +would be Indian mail-day, and she had put it off too late the week +before.</p> + +<div> +<img class="wrapr" src="images/img085.jpg" width="250" height="356" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Now I <i>must</i> give the pound to Theresa at once," she said, again +depositing it in her pocket when she changed her dress for dinner. +Something or other put it out of her head in the drawing-room—poor +Eleanor's head was not a very secure place to keep anything in for +long! It was not till she and her mother and Theresa and her +seventeen-years' old brother Mark were at table, and half way through +dinner, that the unlucky coin again returned into her memory. No +thanks to her memory that it did so! It was only when she pulled out +her handkerchief that the little paper packet came out with it and +fell onto the floor.</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Eleanor, as she stooped to pick it up, "what a good thing +I've remembered it! Here, Theresa, here's a pound for you from aunty, +for your—for the—oh, what is it? Your subscription for Christmas +cards—no, I mean your subscription-card for Christmas dinners—yes, +that's what it's for."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[86]</span></p> + +<p>"All right," said Theresa, quietly, "I understand. But I wish you had +given it me up-stairs, Nelly, I haven't got a pocket in this thin +skirt. Never mind," and she unwrapped it as she spoke, and placed it +on the table beside her.</p> + +<p>"There now," she said, "I can't forget it. It is too conspicuous on +the white cloth."</p> + +<p>The sisters were sitting next each other; that is to say, Theresa was +at one end with Mark opposite, and their mother and Eleanor were at +the sides. The table was small, though large enough for a party of +four.</p> + +<p>Not long was the gold coin allowed to rest peacefully where Theresa +had placed it. Eleanor's fingers soon picked it up. First she examined +it curiously by the light of the candle beside her, then when she had +satisfied herself as to its date and some other particulars, she took +to "spinning" it on the table. This was not very successful; to spin a +coin well requires a hard surface for it to twirl on. Eleanor tried +once or twice, then ended by "spinning" the sovereign on to the floor. +Down she ducked to pick it up again, thereby attracting her mother's +notice.</p> + +<p>"Nelly, my dear, what are you stooping down so awkwardly for?" she +said.</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Theresa, "it is all that pound. Do leave it alone, child, +or it will be getting lost altogether," and she took it out of her +sister's hand and put it under her wine-glass. "There," she said, +"don't touch it again."</p> + +<p>And for a course or two the pound was safe. But Theresa forgot<span class="pagenum">[87]</span> that +wine-glasses are not a fixture; after a while the table was cleared of +them and the crumbs brushed away for dessert. The shining sovereign +was again exposed to full view. Mother, Theresa, and Mark were talking +busily about something interesting, Eleanor's ears were +half-listening, but her restless fingers were unoccupied. They seized +on the coin again, and a new series of experiments with it was the +result, even though she herself was but vaguely conscious what she was +about. At last just as she had found a new trick which amused the +babyish side of her brain greatly, came a remark which thoroughly +caught her attention.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img087.jpg" width="350" height="506" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"The day after to-morrow, Nelly, don't forget," said Theresa, "I'm +going to have the Leonards at afternoon tea."</p> + +<p>And the talk ran upon the Leonards, till they rose to go upstairs to +the drawing-room. Then came the exclamation from Theresa. "My pound, +Nelly, have you touched it? I put it under my wine-glass, but of<span class="pagenum">[88]</span> +course I forgot—the wine-glasses were changed. Henry," to the +footman, "didn't you see it when you moved the glasses? It <i>was</i> +there."</p> + +<p>Henry grew red and stared.</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am, it was there. I saw it. I left it on the cloth."</p> + +<p>Eleanor stared too, though she did not grow red.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "it was there. I took it up again, but I'm sure I did +nothing with it."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless a diving process into her pocket ensued—in vain; then +she got up and shook herself; then everybody began creeping and +crawling about on the floor—in vain; then Mark got down a candle +under the table, thereby, as it was in a high silver candle-stick, +nearly setting everything on fire; then—then—I need not describe the +well-known and most disagreeable experience of hunting for a lost +object, which of course</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"ere it comes to light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We seek in every corner but the right."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>On the whole poor Henry had the worst of it. He was told to examine +"my tray," and to overhaul "my pantry," from top to bottom, which he +did with no result. I think he would gladly have gone down the +drain-pipe leading from "my sink," if he could have got into it.</p> + +<p>"It is an uncomfortable affair," said Nelly's mother gravely. "You see +the young man has so newly come."</p> + +<p>"But, mother, I am <i>sure</i> I saw it after the dessert was on the table, +and the servants out of the room," said Eleanor eagerly.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[89]</span></p> + +<p>"Then, my dear, where is it?"</p> + +<p>You can fancy what an unsettled, spoilt evening it was. The ladies +went upstairs at last, but Mark would not give in. He stayed in the +dining-room by himself, searching like a detective. Suddenly there +came a shout of triumph.</p> + +<p>"I have found it," he called upstairs; "it is all right, Nelly."</p> + +<p>So it was—and where do you think it was?</p> + +<p>I will help you to guess by telling you one circumstance. There had +been <i>nuts</i> at dessert.</p> + +<p>Well, what of that?</p> + +<p>The salt-cellars had been left on the table. And buried in one of +them, shining yellow and bright in the white powder, lay the coin! Was +it not clever of Mark to have thought of it?</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," said Eleanor, looking uncommonly ashamed of herself, "I +remember—I pressed it down on to the salt, and then I covered it up. +It looked so comfortable. Oh I <i>am</i> so sorry!"</p> + +<p>See what comes of letting your fingers get into the way of "tricks," +and letting your wits go wool-gathering.</p> + +<p>But poor Henry's character was saved.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img089.jpg" width="350" height="82" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[90]</span></p> + +<h2 id="Blue_Frocks_and_Pink_Frocks">Blue Frocks and Pink Frocks</h2> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img090.jpg" width="600" height="357" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">R<span class="bold smcap">osalind</span> and Pauline Wyvill were not twins, though at first sight +nearly every one thought they were. Rosy was eleven and Paula only +nine-and-a-half, but Paula was very tall for her age, and Rosy, if +anything, small for eleven, so they were almost exactly the same +height. And though Paula was much fairer than her sister, who had +brown hair and rather dark grey eyes, still there was a good deal of +likeness between them, and they were generally dressed exactly the +same, which made them seem still more like twins.</p> + +<p>Their mother was particular about their dressing the same, but now and +then it was a little difficult to manage, for somehow Paula's frocks +and hats and jackets generally got shabby long before Rosy's, and if +an<span class="pagenum">[91]</span> accident—such as tearing or burning or staining—was to happen, +it was perfectly sure to come to Paula's clothes, and not to her +sister's. In such cases, however, the misfortune had often to be +endured, for their mother could not of course afford to get new things +every time Paula's came to grief, though now and then she had to get +an extra frock or jacket of some stronger or stouter material for the +little girl to wear, if those the same as her sister's had been spoilt +past repair.</p> + +<p>It came to pass, one Christmas holiday, that the two children were +invited to spend a week with an aunt by themselves. It was the first +visit they had ever paid on their own account, and they were both +pleased and excited about it.</p> + +<p>This aunt was their father's elder sister. She was very kind, but not +<i>very</i> much accustomed to young people, and in some of her ideas she +was perhaps extra particular and what people now-a-days call rather +"old-fashioned."</p> + +<p>"You must show your aunt that I have taught you to be very neat and +tidy," said their mother, a few days before the little girls were to +go, "for she is rather strict about such things; it may be a little +difficult for you, as you will have no maid of your own with you. +Whatever you do, be sure always to be dressed exactly alike, that is +one of the things that your aunt will notice the most."</p> + +<p>"Which of us must fix what we are to wear?" said Paula; "mayn't we +take it in turns?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think there should be any difficulty about it," said their<span class="pagenum">[92]</span> +mother. "I should think it would be the nicest to consult together, +without any fixed rule."</p> + +<div> +<img class="wrap" src="images/img092.jpg" width="300" height="374" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Oh, I daresay it will be all right," said Rosy, thinking to herself +that, as she was older than her sister, it would be only fair for her +generally to have the first choice. "Do you think we shall have the +same room, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"No," their mother replied. "I was forgetting to tell you that you are +to have two small separate rooms, as there will be other people +staying in the house, and the larger rooms will be needed for them, so +I have told Ann to pack up your things in two small boxes instead of +together, but remember you have everything exactly alike, so that +there will be no excuse for your not always being dressed the same. +And, Paula, I do hope you will manage not to spoil anything during +these few days."</p> + +<p>"No, mamma, I'll try not," Paula replied, but she spoke rather +absently, for she was not really attending to her mother's last words.</p> + +<p>"What a lot of settling it will take, every time we dress," she was<span class="pagenum">[93]</span> +thinking to herself. "I hope we shan't quarrel about it." For it must +be owned that though Rosy was a very kind elder sister, she was +sometimes rather masterful, and that, though Paula would give in +readily enough when spoken to gently, <i>she</i> could sometimes be very +obstinate, if not taken exactly in the right way.</p> + +<div> +<img class="wrapr" src="images/img093.jpg" width="300" height="430" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>This is not a story, as you might expect, of Paula's misfortunes in +the way of accidents to her clothes during their week's visit. More by +luck than good management, probably, no very important disaster of the +kind occured, and the first two or three days at their aunt's passed +prosperously. Paula gave in to Rosy's wishes as to what frocks they +were to wear, and indeed during the daytime there was not much chance +of difference of opinion, as, being winter, they had only two each, +Sunday and every-day ones. But their kind mother had given them some +new and pretty evening dresses, prettier than they had ever had +before, and the little girls were very much pleased with them. +Unluckily, however, they had a disagreement of taste about them, Rosy +preferring the pink ones and Paula the blue.</p> + +<p>On the third evening of their visit, an hour or so before it was time<span class="pagenum">[94]</span> +to dress, they began talking about what they should put on, for coming +into the drawing-room before dinner.</p> + +<p>"It is the turn for our pink frocks to-night," said Rosy, in the very +decided way that always rather roused Paula's spirit of contradiction. +"And I'm very glad of it, for I like them ever so much the best."</p> + +<p>"I don't," replied Paula, rather crossly, "I think the blues twenty +times prettier, and we never fixed that we were to wear them in +turns."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the blue suits you best," said Rosy, "but the pink suits me; +I heard somebody say so the night we came, and to-night is rather +particular, for you know it's uncle's birthday, and we are to go in to +dessert and sit up an hour later. It is only fair that I should have +what I like best, as I'm the eldest, besides it's the turn of the +pinks."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense about turns," said Paula, more crossly than before, "why +shouldn't I look nice too, on uncle's birthday? <i>I'll</i> wear the blue."</p> + +<p>"And I'll wear the pink," said Rosy, with the most determined air.</p> + +<p>"You'll be punished for it if you do," said Paula, "just think how +vexed aunt will be if we're different, particularly to-night, when it +is going to be a regular dinner-party."</p> + +<p>"I shan't be punished worse than you," was Rosy's reply, "and I shan't +deserve it, and you will."</p> + +<p>It was not often the little sisters' quarrels went so far as this. +Paula felt herself getting so angry that she was afraid what she +mightn't be tempted to say next.</p> + +<p>She ran out of the room, banging the door behind her I am afraid,<span class="pagenum">[95]</span> and +rushed upstairs, where she burst into tears; for anger makes children +cry quite as often as sorrow. But before she had been many minutes in +her own room, her tears grew gentler, for she was a kind-hearted and +loving little girl, and when she had bathed her face, to take away the +redness from her eyes, she ran downstairs again to look for Rosy and +make friends. But Rosy was not to be found anywhere—her aunt had +called her into the conservatory to help her with some flowers she was +arranging there, and after searching for her sister everywhere she +could think of, Paula had to go upstairs to dress, as the first gong +sounded.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/img095.jpg" width="600" height="406" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"As soon as I have done my hair, I'll run to Rosy's room," she thought +to herself, but then another idea struck her, she would give Rosy<span class="pagenum">[96]</span> a +pleasant surprise. "I'll put on the pink frock without telling her," +she thought, "she <i>will</i> be pleased when she sees me with it on." And +she made haste with her dressing so that Rosy might find her already +in the drawing-room when she came down.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that when Rosy, who was a little late of being ready, +looked into Paula's room on her way downstairs, she found her sister +gone. And what do you think happened? there was Paula smiling and +pleased in the <i>pink</i> frock, as Rosy, also smiling and pleased with +herself, walked in in the <i>blue</i>!</p> + +<p>But Aunt Margaret, when she caught sight of them, looked neither +smiling nor pleased.</p> + +<p>"My dear children," she said, in a tone of vexation, "why are you not +dressed alike? On your uncle's birthday too."</p> + +<p>The little girls' faces fell.</p> + +<p>"Oh, auntie," said Rosy, "it's all my fault, but I meant to please +Paula, by putting on the blue."</p> + +<p>"And I meant to please Rosy," said Paula, "by wearing the pink."</p> + +<p>And then the whole story was explained to their aunt, who could not +help smiling at the odd result of their wish to make up their quarrel.</p> + +<p>"Change your frocks," she said, "while we're at dinner, so that you +may be the same at dessert, that will put it all right."</p> + +<p>She made rather a mistake, for of course only one frock needed to be +changed; which it was I cannot tell you. I only know that they came +into dessert and took their place one on each side of their uncle, +dressed alike—in blue <i>or</i> pink!</p> + +<div class="trnote"> +<p class="h4">Transcriber's Notes:</p> + +<p>Inconsistent and archaic spelling and punctuation retained.</p> + +<a id="tn" href="#tt">P. 60:</a> "tiniest trots by name" changed to +"tiniest tots by name". +</div> + +</div><!--main--> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man with the Pan Pipes, by +Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WITH THE PAN PIPES *** + +***** This file should be named 38761-h.htm or 38761-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/7/6/38761/ + +Produced by Delphine Lettau, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at +http://www.pgdpcanada.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e188922 --- /dev/null +++ b/38761-h/images/tp.jpg diff --git a/38761.txt b/38761.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f471182 --- /dev/null +++ b/38761.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2330 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man with the Pan Pipes, by +Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Man with the Pan Pipes + and other Stories + +Author: Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth + +Illustrator: W. J. Morgan + +Release Date: February 4, 2012 [EBook #38761] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WITH THE PAN PIPES *** + + + + +Produced by Delphine Lettau, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at +http://www.pgdpcanada.net + + + + + + + + + + THE MAN WITH THE PAN-PIPES _AND OTHER STORIES_ + + BY MRS. MOLESWORTH + + + ILLUSTRATED BY W. J. MORGAN + + + Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge + LONDON + Northumberland Avenue W.C. + NEW YORK + E & J.B. YOUNG & Co + + + LONDON: + ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY EDMUND EVANS + RACQUET-CT., FLEET-ST., E.C. + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + THE MAN WITH THE PAN-PIPES 7 + PIG-BETTY 30 + THE DORMOUSE'S MISTAKE 51 + THE CHRISTMAS GUEST 59 + OLIVE'S TEA-PARTY 67 + A LIVE DUMMY 76 + A QUEER HIDING-PLACE 83 + BLUE FROCKS AND PINK FROCKS 90 + + + + +THE MAN WITH THE PAN-PIPES + +[Illustration: The man with the Pan-pipes.] + + +CHAPTER I. + +When I was a little girl, which is now a good many years ago, there +came to spend some time with us a cousin who had been brought up in +Germany. She was almost grown-up--to me, a child of six or seven, she +seemed _quite_ grown-up; in reality, she was, I suppose, about fifteen +or sixteen. She was a bright, kind, good-natured girl, very anxious to +please and amuse her little English cousins, especially me, as I was +the only girl. But she had not had much to do with small children; +above all, delicate children, and she was so strong and hearty herself +that she did not understand anything about nervous fears and fancies. +I think I was rather delicate, at least, I was very fanciful; and as I +was quiet and gave very little trouble, nobody noticed how constantly +I was reading, generally in a corner by myself. I now see that I read +far too many stories, for even of good and harmless things it is +possible to have too much. In those days, fortunately for me, there +were not nearly so many books for children, so, as I read very fast, I +was often obliged to read the same stories over and over again. This +was much better for me than always getting new tales and galloping +through them, as I see many children do now-a-days, but still I think +I lived too much in story-book world, and it was well for me when +other things forced me to become more, what is called, "practical." + +My cousin Meta was full of life and activity, and after awhile she +grew tired of always finding me buried in my books. + +"It isn't good for you, Addie," she said. "Such a dot as you are, to +be always poking about in a corner reading." + +She was quite right, and when mamma's attention was drawn to it she +agreed with Meta, and I was given some pretty fancy-work to do and +some new dolls to dress, and, above all, I was made to play about in +the garden a good deal more. It was not much of a garden, for our home +was then in a town, still it was better than being indoors. And very +often when kind Meta saw me looking rather forlorn, for I got quickly +tired with outdoor games, she would come and sit with me in the +arbour, or walk about--up and down a long gravel path there +was--telling me stories. + +That was her great charm for me. She was really splendid at telling +stories. And as hitherto she had only done me good, and mamma knew +what a sensible girl she was, Meta was left free to tell me what +stories she chose. They were all nice stories, most of them very +interesting. But some were rather too exciting for such a tiny mite as +I was. Meta had read and heard quantities of German fairy-tales and +legends, many of which I think had not then been printed in +books--certainly not in English books. For since I have been grown-up +I have come across several stories of the kind which seemed new to +most readers, though I remember my cousin telling them to me long, +long ago. + +[Illustration: Tales of Gnomes & Kobolds] + +There were wonderful tales of gnomes and kobolds, of the strange +adventures of the charcoal-burners in lonely forests, of water-sprites +and dwarfs. But none of all these made quite as great an impression on +me as one which Meta called "The Man with the Pan-pipes," a story +which, much to my surprise, I found years after in a well-known poem +called "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." It was the very same story as to +the facts, with just a few differences; for instance, the man in the +poem is not described as playing on _pan-pipes_, but on some other +kind of pipe. But though it is really the same, it seems quite, quite +different from the story as I heard it long ago. In the poem there is +a wonderful brightness and liveliness, and now and then even fun, +which were all absent in Meta's tale. As she told it, it was strangely +dark and mysterious. I shall never forget how I used to shiver when +she came to the second visit of the piper, and described how the +children slowly and unwillingly followed him--how he used to turn +round now and then with a glance in his grim face which made the +squeal of the pipes still more unearthly. There was no beauty in his +music, no dancing steps were the children's whom he dragged along by +his power; "they just _had_ to go," Meta would say. And when she came +to the mysterious ending, my questions were always the same. + +"Are they still there--shut up in the cave?" I would ask. + +Meta supposed so. + +"Will they never come out--never, never?" I said. + +She shook her head. + +"And if they ever did," I said, "would they be grown-up people, or +quite old like--like that man you were telling me about. Rip--Rip--" + +"Rip van Winkle," she said. + +"Yes, like Rip van Winkle, or would they have _stayed_ children like +the boy the fairies took inside the hill to be their servant?" + +Meta considered. + +"I almost _think_," she said, seriously, "they would have stayed +children. But, of course, it's only a story, Addie. I don't suppose +it's true. You take things up so. Don't go on puzzling about it." + +I would leave off speaking about it for the time; I was so dreadfully +afraid of her saying she would not tell it me again. And even though I +knew it quite well, and could correct Meta if ever she made any part +of it the least different, I was never tired of hearing the story. I +would ask for it over and over again, and I used to have exactly the +same feelings each time she told it, and always at the part where the +children began to come out of their houses, some leaving their +dinners, some tiny ones waking up out of their sleep, some only +half-dressed, but all with the same strange look on their faces, I +used to catch hold of Meta's hand and say to her, "Hold me fast, I'm +so afraid of fancying I hear him," and then she would burst out +laughing at me, and I would laugh at myself. For she was far too kind +a girl to think of frightening me, and, indeed, except for a curious +"coincidence"--to use a very long word which means something of the +same kind as another thing happening at or about the same time--I do +not think the story would have really taken hold of my fancy as it +did. + +One of my questions Meta was not able for some time to answer to my +satisfaction. + +[Illustration: and Dwarfs] + +"What are Pan-pipes?" I asked. The word "pipe" was so mixed up in my +mind with white clay pipes, out of which we used to blow soap bubbles, +that I could not understand it having to do with any kind of music. + +"Oh," said Meta, "they're made of reeds, you know, all in a row like +this," and she held up her fingers to her lips, "and you play them by +whistling along them, do you see? It sounds something like when you +fasten tissue-paper on a comb and blow along it. And they're called +'Pan'-pipes because--oh, I forgot, of course you haven't learnt +mythology yet--'Pan' was one of the old pagan gods, a sort of fairy or +wood sprite, you know, Addie, and the pictures and figures of him +always show him playing on these reed pipes!" + +I said "Yes," but I didn't really understand her description. It left +a queer jumble in my head, and added to the strange, dreamy medley +already there. But, though it was not till years afterwards that I +learnt about "Pan," before Meta left us I was able to see for myself a +set of his "pipes." + + +CHAPTER II. + +It was _just_ before my merry cousin left us, to return to her own +home across the sea. + +One day several of us were out walking together. Meta was in front +with mamma and one of my elder brothers, I was behind with Tony and +Michael, the two nearer my own age. Suddenly Meta glanced round. + +"Look, Addie," she called back, "there's a set of Pan-pipes; you +wanted to know what they were like. They're a very doleful set, +certainly; did you _ever_ see such a miserable object? He must be +silly in his head, poor thing, don't you think, aunty? May I give him +a penny--or Jack will." + +For even Meta did not seem inclined to go too near to the poor man, +whom she was indeed right in calling "a miserable object." + +Jack ran forward with the penny, and we all stopped for a moment, so I +had a full view of the Pan-pipes. They were fastened somehow on to the +man's chest, so that their top just came near his lips, and as he +moved his head slowly backwards and forwards along them, they gave out +the most strange kind of music, if music it could be called, which you +ever heard. It was a sort of faint squeak with just now and then a +_kind_ of tone in it, like very doleful muffled whistling. Perhaps the +sight of the piper himself added to the very "creepy" feeling it gave +one. He was not only a piper, he was, or rather had been, an +organ-grinder too, for he carried in front of him, fastened by straps +round his neck in the usual way, the remains of a barrel organ. It had +long ago been smashed to pieces, and really was now nothing but an old +broken-in wooden box, with some fragments of metal clinging to it, and +the tatters of a ragged cover. But the handle was still there; perhaps +it had been stuck in again on purpose; and all the time, as an +accompaniment to the forlorn quaver of the reed pipes, you heard the +hollow rattle of the loose boards of what had been the barrel-organ. +He kept moving the handle round and round, without ever stopping, +except for a moment, when Jack half threw, half reached him the penny, +which brought a sort of grin on to his face, as he clutched at the +dirty old tuft of shag on the top of his head, which he doubtless +considered his cap. + +"Poor creature," said mamma, as we turned away. "I suppose he thinks +he's playing lovely music." + +"I've seen him before," said Jack. "Not long after we came here." +(Perhaps I should explain that my father was an officer, and we had to +go about wherever his regiment was sent.) "But I've not seen him +lately. There's some story about him, but I know some of the boys at +school declare he's not mad a bit, that he finds it pays well to sham +he is." + +"Any way he doesn't need to be afraid of his organ wearing out," said +Tony, gravely, at which the others couldn't help laughing. + +[Illustration: Jack, half threw, half reached him the penny] + +"I shouldn't think it likely he is only pretending," said mamma. "He +looks almost _too_ miserable." + +"And sometimes there's quite a crowd of children after him," Jack went +on; "they seem to think him quite as good to run after as a proper +barrel-organ man." + +"I hope they don't hoot and jeer at him," said mamma. + +"His Pan-pipes are nearly as bad as his organ," said Meta. "Still, +Addie, you know now what they're like, though you can't fancy how +pretty they sound sometimes." + +It did not need her words to remind me of the story. My head was full +of it, and I think what Jack said about the crowds of children that +sometimes ran after the strange musician, added very much to the +feelings and fancies already in my mind. And unfortunately Meta left +us the very next morning, so there was no one for me to talk to about +it, for my brothers were all day at school and did not know anything +about our story-tellings. I do remember saying to Meta that evening, +that I hoped we should never meet that ugly man again, and Meta could +not think what I meant, till I said something about Pan-pipes. Then +she seemed to remember. + +"Oh, he didn't play them at all nicely," she said. "One of the boys at +home had a set, and he really made them sound lovely. When you come to +Germany, Addie," for that was a favourite castle in the air of ours--a +castle that never was built--that I should one day pay a long visit to +my cousins in their quaint old house, "Fritz will play to you, and you +will then understand the story better." + +I daresay I should have told her the reason why I so hoped I should +never meet the poor man again, if I had had time. But even to her I +was rather shy of talking about my own feelings, and it was also not +easy to explain them, when they were so mixed up and confused. + +It was only a few days after Meta left, that we met the man with the +Pan-pipes again. This time I was out walking with our nurse and the +baby, as we still called him, though he was three years old. I don't +think nurse noticed the man, or perhaps she had seen him before, but I +heard the queer squeal of his pipes and the rattle of his broken box +some way off, and when I saw him coming in the distance I asked her if +we might turn down a side street and go round another way. + +She said she did not mind, but though she was kind, she was not very +noticing, and did not ask my reason, so for that day it was got over +without my needing to explain. But for some time after that, we seemed +to be always meeting the poor "silly" organ-man, and every time I saw +him, I grew more and more frightened, till at last the fear of seeing +him came quite to spoil the pleasure of my walks, even when I was out +with mamma herself. Now I dare say all sensible children who read this +will say, "Why didn't Addie tell her nurse, or, any way, her mother, +all about it?" and if they do say so, they are quite right. Indeed, it +is partly to show this very thing--how much better it is to tell some +kind wiser person all about any childish fear or fancy, than to go on +bearing it out of dread of being laughed at or called babyish--that I +am relating this simple little story. I really cannot quite explain +why I did not tell about it to mamma--I think it was partly that being +the only girl, I had a particularly great fear of being thought +cowardly--for she was always very kind; and I think, too, it was +partly that from having read so many story-books _to myself_, I had +got into the habit of being too much inside my own thoughts and +fancies. I think story-books would often do much more good, and give +really much more lasting pleasure if children were more in the habit +of reading aloud to each other. And if this calls for some +unselfishness, why, what then? is it not all the better? + +But to return to my own story. There came a day when my dread of the +man with the pipes got quite beyond my control--happily so for me. + + +CHAPTER III. + +Hitherto, every time I had seen the man, it had been either in some +large public street where a crowd would not have been allowed to +collect, or in one of the quieter roads of private houses, where we +generally walked, and where poor children seldom were to be seen. + +But one day mamma sent Baby and me with nurse to carry some little +comfort to one of the soldier's wives, who was so ill that she had +been moved to the house of relations of hers in the town. They were +very respectable people, but they lived in quite a tiny house in a +poor street. Baby and I had never been there before, and we were much +interested in watching several small people, about our own size, +playing about. They were clean, tidy-looking children, so nurse, after +throwing a glance at them, told us we might watch them from the door +of the house while she went in to see the sick woman. + +We had not stood there more than a minute or two when a strange, +well-known sound caught my ears, squeak, squeal, rattle, rattle, +rattle. Oh, dear! I felt myself beginning to tremble; I am sure I grew +pale. The children we were watching started up, and ran some paces +down the street to a corner, when in another moment appeared what I +already knew was coming--the man with the Pan-pipes! But never had the +sight of him so terrified me. For he was surrounded by a crowd of +children, a regular troop of them following him through the poor part +of the town where we were. If I had kept my wits, and looked on +quietly, I would have soon seen that the children were not the least +afraid, they were chattering and laughing; some, I fear, mocking and +hooting at the poor imbecile. But just at that moment the last touch +was added to my terror by my little brother pulling his hand out of +mine. + +[Illustration: "He was surrounded by a crowd of children"] + +"Baby wants to see too," he said, and off he trotted down the street. + +My senses seemed quite to go. + +"He's piping them away," I screamed, and then I am ashamed to say I +turned and fled, leaving Baby to his fate. Why I did not run into the +house and call nurse, I do not know; if I thought about it at all, I +suppose I had a hazy feeling that it would be no good, that even nurse +could not save us. And I saw that the crowd was coming my way, in +another minute the squeaking piping would be close beside me in the +street. I thought of nothing except flight, and terrified that I too +should be bewitched by the sound, I thrust my fingers into my ears, +and dashed down the street in the opposite direction from the +approaching crowd. That was my only thought. I ran and ran. I wonder +the people I passed did not try to stop me, for I am sure I must have +looked quite as crazy as my imaginary wizard! But at last my breath +got so short that I had to pull up, and to my great relief I found I +was quite out of hearing of the faint whistle of the terrible pipes. + +Still I was not completely reassured. I had not come very far after +all. So I set off again, though not quite at such a rate. I hurried +down one street and up another, with the one idea of getting further +and further away. But by degrees my wits began to recover themselves. + +"I wish I could find our home," I thought. "I can't go on running for +always. Perhaps if I told mamma all about it, she'd find some way of +keeping me and Baby safe." + +[Illustration: "He's piping them away I screamed"] + +But with the thought of Baby came back my terrors. Was it too late to +save him? Certainly there were no rocks or caves to be seen such as +Meta had described in her story. But she had said outside the +town--perhaps the piper was leading all the children, poor darling +Baby among them, away into the country, to shut them up for ever as +had been done in Hamelin town. And with the dreadful thought, all my +terrors revived, and off I set again, but this time with the more +worthy intention of saving Baby. I must go home and tell mamma so that +she would send after him. I fancied I was in a street not far from +where we lived, and I hurried on. But, alas! when I got to the end it +was all quite strange. I found myself among small houses again, and +nearly dead with fatigue and exhaustion, I stopped in front of one +where an old woman was sweeping the steps of her door. + +"Oh, please," I gasped, "please tell me where Clarence Terrace is." + +The old woman stopped sweeping, and looked at me. She was a very clean +old woman, though so small that she was almost a dwarf, and with a +slight hump on her shoulders. At another time I might have been so +silly as to be frightened of her, so full was my head of fanciful +ideas. But now I was too completely in despair to think of it. Besides +her face was kind and her voice pleasant. + +"Clarence Terrace," she squeaked. "'Tis a good bit from here. Have you +lost your way, Missy?" + +"I don't know," I said, "I----" but then a giddy feeling came over me, +and I almost fell. The old woman caught me, and the next thing I knew +was that she had carried me into her neat little kitchen, and was +holding a glass of water to my lips, while she spoke very kindly. Her +voice somehow brought things to a point, and I burst into tears. She +soothed me, and petted me, and at last in answer to her repeated, +"What's ado, then, lovey?" I was able to explain to her some part of +my troubles. Not all of course, for even upset as I was, I had sense +to know she would have thought _me_ not "right in my head," if I had +told her my cousin's strange fantastic story of the piper in the old +German town. + +[Illustration: "I thrust my fingers into my ears & dashed down the +street"] + +"Frightened of old Davey," she said, when I stopped. "Dear dear, +there's no call to be afeared of the poor old silly. Not but what I've +said myself he was scarce fit to be about the streets for the look of +him, though he'd not hurt a fly, wouldn't silly Davey." + +"Then do you know him?" I asked, with a feeling of great relief. All +the queer nightmare fears seemed to melt away, when I heard the poor +crazy piper spoken of in a matter-of-fact way. + +"Know him," repeated my new friend, "I should think we did. Bless you +he comes every Saturday to us for his dinner, as reg'lar as the clock +strikes, and has done for many a day. Twelve year, or so, it must be, +since he was runned over by a bus, and his poor head smashed in, and +his organ busted, and his pipes broke to bits. He was took to the +'orspital and patched up, but bein' a furriner was against him, no +doubt," and the old woman shook her head sagely. "He couldn't talk +proper before, and since, he can say nothink as any one can make head +or tail of. But as long as he's free to go about with his rattlin' old +box as was onst a' orgin, he's quite happy. They give 'im new pipes at +the 'orspital, but he can't play them right. And a bit ago some +well-intending ladies had 'im took off to a 'sylum, sayin' as he +wasn't fit to be about. But he nearly died of the bein' shut up, he +did. So now he's about again, he has a little room in a street near +here, that is paid for, and he gets a many pennies, does Davey, and +the neighbours sees to him, and he's quite content, and he does no +harm, and all the town knows silly Davey." + +"But don't naughty children mock at him and tease him sometimes?" I +asked. + +"Not so often as you'd think, and they're pretty sure to be put down +if they do. All the perlice knows Davey. So now, my dear, you'll never +be afeared of the poor thing no more, will you? And I'll step round +with you to your 'ome, I will, and welcome." + +So she did, and on the way, to my unspeakable delight, we came across +nurse and Baby, nearly out of their wits with terror at having lost +me. For Baby had only followed the piper a very short way, and did not +find him interesting. + +"Him were a old silly, and couldn't make nice music," said sensible +Baby. + +And though we often met poor crazy Davey after that, and many of my +weekly pennies found their way to him as long as we stayed in the +place, I never again felt any terror of the harmless creature. +Especially after I had told the whole story to mamma, who was wise +enough to see that too many fairy stories, or "fancy" stories are +_not_ a good thing for little girls, though of course she was too kind +and too just to blame Meta, who had only wished to entertain and amuse +me. + + + + +PIG-BETTY + +[Illustration: "PIG-BETTY" BY MRS. MOLESWORTH] + + +PART I. + +I am going to tell you a story that mother told us. _We_ think +mother's stories far the most interesting and nicest of any we hear or +read. And we are trying to write them all down, so that our children, +if ever any of us have any, may know them too. We mean to call them +"Grandmother's Stories." One reason why they are nice is, that nearly +all of them are real, what is called "founded on fact." By the time +_our_ children come to hear them, mother says her stories will all +have grown dreadfully old-fashioned, but we tell her that will make +them all the nicer. They will have a scent of long-ago-ness about +them, something like the faint lavendery whiff that comes out of +mother's old doll-box, where she keeps a few of the toys and dolls' +clothes she has never had the heart to part with. + +The little story, or "sketch"--mother says it isn't worth calling a +"story"--I am going to write down now, is already a long-ago one. For +it isn't really one of mother's own stories; it was told her by _her_ +mother, so if ever our book comes to exist, this one will have to have +a chapter to itself and be called "_Great_-grandmother's Story," won't +it? I remember quite well what made mother tell it us. It was when we +were staying in the country one year, and Francie had been frightened, +coming through the village, by meeting a poor idiot boy who ran after +us and laughed at us in a queer silly way. I believe he meant to +please us, but Francie's fright made her angry, and she wanted nurse +to speak to him sharply and tell him to get away, but nurse wouldn't. + +"One should always be gentle to those so afflicted," she said. + +When we got home we told mother about it, and Francie asked her to +speak to nurse, adding, "It's very disagreeable to see people like +that about. _I_ think they should always be shut up, don't you, +mother?" + +"Not always," mother replied. "Of course, when they are at all +dangerous, likely to hurt themselves or any one else, it is necessary +to shut them up. And if they can be taught anything, as some can be, +it is the truest kindness to send them to an asylum, where it is +wonderful what patience and skill can sometimes make of them. But I +know about that boy in the village. He is perfectly harmless, even +gentle and affectionate. He has been at a school for such as he, and +has learnt to knit--that is the only thing they could succeed in +teaching him. It was no use leaving him there longer, and he pined for +home most sadly. So as his relations are pretty well off, it was +thought best to send him back, and he is now quite content. I wish I +had told you about him. When you meet him again you must be sure to +speak kindly--they say he never forgets if any one does so." + +[Illustration: Of course we all said "yes"] + +"Poor boy," said Ted and I; but Francie did not look quite convinced. + +"I think he should be shut up," she repeated, in rather a low voice. +Francie used to be a very obstinate little girl. "And _I_ shan't speak +to him kindly or any way." + +Mother did not answer, though she heard. I know she did. But in a +minute or two she said: + +"Would you like to hear a story about an idiot, that your grandmother +told me? It happened when she was a little girl." + +Of course we all said "yes," with eagerness. + +And this was the story. + +"'Pig-Betty' isn't a very pretty name for a story, or for a person, is +it? But Pig-Betty was a real person, though I daresay none of you have +the least idea what the word 'pig' added to her own name meant," said +mother. No, none of us had. We thought, perhaps, it was because this +"Betty" was very lazy, or greedy or even dirty, but mother shook her +head at all those guesses. And then she went on to explain. "Pig," in +some parts of Scotland, she told us, means a piece of coarse crockery. +It is used mostly for jugs, though in a general way it means any sort +of crockery. "And long ago," mother went on--I think I'll give up +putting 'mother said,' or 'mother went on,' and just tell it straight +off, as she did. + +Long ago then, when _my_ mother was a little girl, she and her +brothers and sisters used to spend some months of every year in a +rather out-of-the-way part of Scotland. There was no railway and no +"coach," that came within at all easy reach. The nearest town was ten +or twelve miles away, and even the village was two or three. And a +good many things, ordinary, common things, were supplied by pedlars, +who walked long distances, often carrying their wares upon their +backs. These pedlars came to be generally called by what they had to +sell, as a sort of nickname. You may think it was a very hard life, +but there were a good many nice things about it. They were always sure +of a welcome, for it was a pleasant excitement in the quiet life of +the cottages and farm-houses, and even of the big houses about, when +one of these travelling merchants appeared; and they never needed to +feel any anxiety about their board and lodging. They could always +count upon a meal or two and on a night's shelter. Very often they +slept in the barn of the farm-house--or even sometimes in a clean +corner of the cows' "byre." They were not very particular. + +[Illustration: "They were always sure of a welcome"] + +Among these good people there were both men and women, and poor +Pig-Betty was one of the latter. + +My mother and the other children used always to ask as one of their +first questions when they arrived at Greystanes--that was the name of +their uncle's country house--on their yearly visit, if Pig-Betty had +been there lately, or if she was expected to come soon. One or other +was pretty sure to be the case. + +They had several reasons for their interest in the old woman. One was +that they were very fond of blowing soap-bubbles, which they seldom +got leave to do in town, and they always bought a new supply of white +clay pipes the first time Pig-Betty appeared; another was that she had +what children thought very wonderful treasures hidden among the coarse +pots and dishes and jugs that she carried in a shapeless bundle on her +bent old back. And sometimes, if she were in a very good humour, she +would present one of the little people with a green parrot rejoicing +in a whistle in its tail, or with a goggle-eyed dog, reminding one of +the creatures in Hans Andersen's tale of "The Three Soldiers." And the +third reason was perhaps the strongest, though the strangest of all. + +[Illustration: OLD BETTY'S TREASURES] + + +PART II. + +The third reason why the children were so interested in the old pedlar +woman was, I said, the strongest, though the strangest of all. She was +an idiot! They were almost too young to understand what being an idiot +really meant, but they could see for themselves that she was quite +unlike other people, and her strangeness gave her a queer charm and +attraction for them--almost what is called "fascination." When she was +at Greystanes, where she always stayed two or three days, they were +never at a loss for amusement, for they did little else than run here +and there to peep at her and tell over to each other the odd way she +trotted about, nodding and shaking her head and talking on to herself +as if she were holding long conversations. It did not do to let her +see they were watching her, for it would have made her angry. Indeed, +several times the children had been warned not to do so, and their +nurse had been told to keep them out of the old woman's way; but, as +everybody knows, children are contradictory creatures, and in the +country, nurse could not keep as close a look out on them as in town. +Then it was well known that Pig-Betty was very gentle, even when she +was angry--and she did have fits of temper sometimes--she had never +been known to hurt anyone. + +[Illustration: 'Well, Betty, my woman, and how are ye?'] + +And, of course, she was not quite without sense. She was able to +manage her little trade well enough and to see that she was paid +correctly for the "pigs" she sold. She was able, too, to tell the +difference between Sunday and other days, for on Sunday she would +never "travel," and would often, if she were near a village, creep +into the "kirk" and sit in a corner quite quietly. Perhaps "idiot" is +hardly the right word to use about her, for there were a few old folk +who said they had been told that she had not always been quite so +strange and "wanting," but that a great trouble or sorrow that had +happened in her family had made her so. The truth was that no one knew +her real story. She had wandered into our part of the country from a +long way off, thirty or forty years ago, and as people had been kind +to her, there she had stayed. No one knew how old she was. Uncle +James, himself an elderly man, said she had not changed the least all +the years he had known her. + +Uncle James was one of the people she had a great affection for. She +would stand still whenever he passed her with a kindly, "Well, Betty, +my woman, and how are ye?" bobbing a kind of queer curtsey till he was +out of sight, and murmuring blessings on the "laird." He never forgot +her when she was at Greystanes, always giving orders that the poor +body should be made comfortable and have all she wanted. + +One of his little kindnesses to her was the cause of a good deal of +excitement to the children when they were with Uncle James. At that +time gentlepeople dined much earlier than they do now, especially in +the country. At Greystanes four o'clock was the regular dinner hour. +The children used always to be nicely dressed and sent down "to +dessert." And when Pig-Betty was there, Uncle James never failed to +pour out a glass of wine and say, "Now, who will take this to the old +woman?" + +[Illustration: "The procession of five"] + +Pig-Betty knew it was coming, for she always managed to be in the +kitchen at that time, and however busy the servants were, they never +thought of turning her out. There was a good deal of superstitious awe +felt about her, in spite of her gentleness; and the children would +look at each other, half-wishing, half-fearing to be the cup-bearer. + +"I will," Johnny would say; and as soon as he spoke all the others +followed. + +"No, let me," Hughie would cry, and then Maisie and Lily joined in +with their "I will," or "Do let me, Uncle James." + +"First come, first served," Uncle would reply, as he handed the +well-filled glass to Johnny or Maisie, or whichever had been the +first. Then the procession of five would set off, walking slowly, so +as not to spill the wine, down the long stone passages leading to the +kitchen and offices of the old house. And what usually happened was +this. + +As they got to the kitchen door, Johnny--supposing it was he who was +carrying the wine--would go more and more slowly. + +"I don't mind, after all, letting _you_ give it, Maisie," or "Hughie," +he would say. + +"No, thank you, Johnny," they would meekly reply. And Lily, who was +the most outspoken, would confess, + +"I always _think_ I'd like to give it her, but I do get _so_ +frightened when I see her close to me, that I really daren't," which +was in truth the feeling of all four! + +So it was pretty sure to end by number five coming to the front. +Number five was little Annette, the youngest. She was a sweet, +curly-haired maiden, too sunny and merry herself to know what fear +meant. + +"_I_'ll dive it poor old Pig-Betty," she always cried, and so she did. +Inside the kitchen the glass was handed to her, and she trotted up to +the old woman in her corner with it, undismayed by the near sight of +the queer wizened old face, like a red and yellow withered apple, and +the bright piercing eyes, to be seen at the end, as it were, of a sort +of overhanging archway of shawls and handkerchiefs and queer frilled +headpiece under all, which Betty managed in some mysterious way to +half bury herself in. + +She always murmured blessings on the child as she drank the wine, and +no doubt this little ceremony was the beginning of her devotion to the +baby of the family. + +This devotion was made still greater by what happened one day. + +There were unkind and thoughtless people at Greystanes as well as +everywhere else. And one summer there came some "new folk" to live in +one of the cottages inhabited by Uncle James's farm-labourers. This +did not often happen, as he seldom changed his people. These strangers +were from some distance, and had never happened to come across the +poor half-witted old woman, and there were two or three rough boys in +the family who were spoilt and wild, and who thought themselves far +above the country people, as they had lived for some time in a small +town. And so one day--Oh, dear! I am getting this chapter of mother's +story too long. I must begin a new one. + + +PART III. + +Well, one day, as I was saying, the children, who had not seen old +Betty for several weeks, were on their way to the village--two miles +off--when near the corner of a lane, they heard a great noise. Loud +voices and jeering laughter, and a kind of strange shrill shrieking, +which made them stare at each other in wonder and almost fear. Nurse +was not with them, they were to meet her further down the road, as she +had gone on first with a message to a woman who was ill. + +"What can it be?" said Maisie. + +They hurried on to see, and the mystery was soon explained. There in +the midst of a little group of boys, and two or three girls also, I am +afraid, stood the poor old idiot. She was convulsed with rage, +screaming, shrieking, almost foaming with fury, while first one then +another darted forward and gave a pull to her skirts or jacket from +behind, and as quickly as she turned, a fresh tormentor would catch at +her from the other side, all shouting together at the top of their +voices, "Wha is't this time, my Leddy Betty? Thaur, ye have him noo." + +They were not _hurting_ her, but it was the insult she felt so keenly, +for she was used to respectful treatment. The Simpson boys, the new +comers, were in the front of the fray, of course. + +For a moment the five Greystanes children stood speechless with +horror. Then Johnny darted to the idiot's side, he did it with the +best intentions, but Betty, confused and blinded, did not distinguish +him from the others, and dealt him a blow which sent him staggering +back, as she howled out to him, "Ye ill-faured loon, tak' that." + +[Illustration: Betty's Tormentors] + +"Run, Johnny, run," shrieked Maisie, which Hughie and Lill, who were +twins and always kept together, had already done, not out of cowardice +but in search of help. But little Annette rushed forward. + +"Bad boys that you are," she shouted with her little shrill baby voice +that seemed to have suddenly grown commanding, "off with you. You +shall not torment my guid auld Betty." For though the children's +mother was most careful that their speech should be "English," strong +excitement would bring out their native tongue. And as the child +uttered the last words she flung her arms round the poor woman, who, +weak and feeble as soon as her fury began to lessen, tottered to the +ground, where they clung together--the sorrow-crushed aged creature +and the cherub-faced child--sobbing in each other's arms. For +Pig-Betty had known her little friend in an instant. + +[Illustration: "My bonny wee leddy she murmured"] + +"My bonny wee leddy," she murmured, "auld Betty's ain wee leddy," and +with her trembling fingers she untied the knotted corners of her +bundle of "pigs," and searching for the best of her treasures, the +best and biggest of her "whustling polls," she stuffed it into +Annette's hands. + +Strange to say the ruffianly group had already dispersed and were not +again seen! + +It was soon after that that the children went back again for the +winter to their London home. Next year saw them once more in the +north, and as nurse unpacked their trunks she came upon the green +parrot, which Annette would never part from. + +"I wonder if Pig-Betty's still alive," she said. + +Oh yes--so far as was known at Greystanes, she was rambling about as +usual, but she had not been there for some weeks. Fortunately for the +children, however, it was near the time for her visit, as you shall +hear. + +A few days after their arrival they were all out together, when they +happened to pass by a cottage, whose owner was famed for a very choice +breed of dogs he kept. + +"Let's peep over the wall into Sandy's yard, and see if he has any new +puppies," said Johnny, and they all did so. No, there were no puppies +to be seen, only an older dog which the boys remembered by the name of +"Jock," and they called out to him. + +But Jock took no heed. He was moving about the little enclosure in a +queer, restless way, his head hanging down, his tail between his legs. + +"Poor Jock," said Hughie, "how dull he looks! What a shame of Sandy to +have gone out and left him alone!" For evidently there was no one at +home in the cottage. Truth to tell, Sandy was off for the dog-doctor. + +"Let's let him out," said Johnny, "and cheer him up a bit. He'll know +us once he's out." + +They did not hear a quick but shuffling step up the lane, nor a +panting, quavering voice, "Bairns, bairns, dinna ye----" + +It was Pig-Betty, just arrived that morning, and left by Sandy in +charge of his cottage and the suspiciously suffering Jock--a charge +she was quite able for. + +[Illustration: Let's peep over the wall! and they all did so.] + +"Let no one gang near him," Sandy had said; "and, my woman, just ye +sit at the gate there till I'm back. I'll no be lang." + +But, alas, the children had come round by the fields behind the +cottage. + +It was too late--the yard gate was opened, and Jock, after sniffing +and turning about came slowly out. + +"Poor old Jockie," said Annette, always fearless, stooping to stroke +him. + +He turned upon her with a dreadful growl, he was not yet quite mad, +but the poison was in him. And in another instant the deadly fangs +would have been in the baby's tender flesh, but for the well-aimed +blow which flung the dog back, though only for a moment. It was Betty, +dashing at him with her bundle of "pigs," the only weapon at hand--the +poor pigs smashing and crashing; but they only diverted Jock's attack. +When Sandy and the dog-doctor came rushing up, she was on the ground, +and Jock had already bitten her in two or three places. But all she +said was, "My wee leddy, haud him aff my wee leddy." + +And they were able to secure him, so that no one else was bitten. + +No, Betty did not die of hydrophobia. She lived for a few months, not +longer, her old nerves and feeble frame had got their death blow. But +she was tenderly cared for in a peaceful corner of the hospital at the +neighbouring town. Uncle James and the children's parents took care +that she should want for nothing, and as her bodily strength failed +her mind seemed to clear. When little Annette was taken to say +good-bye to the brave old woman, poor Pig-Betty was able to whisper a +word or two of loving hope that she and her "wee leddy" might meet +again--in the Better Land. + + + + +THE DORMOUSE'S MISTAKE. + + +They lived at the corner of the common. Papa, Mamma, Fuzz and +Brown-ears, Snip and Peepy, their four children. It was a lovely place +to live at, but as they had never seen any other part of the world, I +am not sure that they thought it quite so delightful as they might +otherwise have done. The children, that is to say--Papa and Mamma of +course were wiser. They had _heard_ of very different sorts of places +where some poor dormice had to live; small cooped-up nests called +cages, out of which they were never allowed to run about, or to enjoy +the delightful summer sunshine, and go foraging for hazel nuts and +haws, and other delicacies, for themselves. For an ancestor of theirs +had once been taken prisoner and shut up in a cage, whence, wonderful +to say, he had escaped and got back to the woods again, where he +became a great personage among dormice, and was even occasionally +requested to give lectures in public to the squirrels and water-rats, +and moles and rabbits, and other forest-folk, describing the strange +and marvellous things he had seen and heard during his captivity. He +had learnt to understand human talk for one thing, and had taught it +to his children; and his great-grandson, the Papa of Fuzz and +Brown-ears, Snip and Peepy, had begun to give them lessons in this +foreign language in their turn, for, as he wisely remarked, there was +no saying if it might not turn out useful some day. + +The cold weather set in very early this year. Already, for some days, +Fuzz and Brown-ears, Snip and Peepy had begun to feel a curious +heaviness stealing over them now and then; they did not seem inclined +to turn out in the morning, and were very glad when one evening their +mother told them that the store cupboards being now quite full, they +need none of them get up the next day at all unless they were +inclined. + +"For my part," she added, "I cannot keep awake any longer, nor can +your Papa. We are going to roll ourselves up to-night. You young folk +may keep awake a week or two longer perhaps, but if this frost +continues, I doubt it. So good-night, my dears, for a month or two; +the first mild day we shall all rouse up, never fear, and have a good +meal before we snooze off again." + +And sure enough next morning, when the young people turned out a good +deal later than usual, Papa and Mamma were as fast asleep as the seven +sleepers in the old story, which had given their name to the German +branch of the dormouse family! Fuzz and Brown-ears, Snip and Peepy +felt rather strange and lonely; two round furry balls seemed a very +queer sort of exchange for their active, bright-eyed father and +mother. But as there was plenty to eat they consoled themselves after +a bit, and got through the next two or three weeks pretty comfortably, +every day feeling more and more drowsy, till at last came a morning +on which six neat little brown balls instead of two lay in a row--the +dormouse family had begun their winter repose. And all was quiet and +silent in the cosy nest among the twigs of the low-growing bushes at +the corner of the common. + +[Illustration: THE LECTURE.] + +It seemed as if winter had really come. For three or four weeks there +was but little sunshine even in the middle of the day, and in the +mornings and evenings the air was piercingly cold. + +"I suppose all the poor little wood-creatures have begun their winter +sleep," said Cicely Gray one afternoon as she was hastening home from +the village by a short cut through the trees. "I must say I rather +envy them." + +"_I_ don't," said her brother, "I shouldn't like to lose half my life. +Hush, Cicely, there's a rabbit. What a jolly little fellow! How he +scuds along! There's another, two, three! Oh, Cis, I do hope I shall +get some shooting when I come home at Christmas." + +Cicely sighed. "I hate shooting," she said. "I'm sure it would be +better to sleep half one's life than to stay awake to be shot." + +But it was too cold to linger talking. The brother and sister set off +running, so that their cheeks were glowing and their eyes sparkling by +the time they got to the Hall gates. + +Three days later Harry had gone off to school. Cicely missed him very +much; especially as a most pleasant and unexpected change had come +over the weather. A real "St. Martin's summer" had set in. What +delightful walks and rambles Harry and she could have had, thought +Cicely, if only it had come a little sooner! + +The mild air found its way into the nest where the six little brown +balls lay side by side, till at first one, then another, then all six +slowly unrolled themselves, stretched their little paws, unclosed +their eyes, and began to look about them. + +"Time for our first winter dinner," said Mrs. Dormouse sleepily; "it's +all ready over there in the corner under the oak leaves. Help +yourselves my dears, eat as much as you can; you'll sleep all the +better for it. And don't be long about it; it's as much as I can do +to keep my eyes open." + +Mr. Dormouse and the others followed her advice. For a few minutes +nothing was heard but the little nibbling and cracking sounds which +told that a raid had been made on the winter stores. + +"Good-night again, my dears," said Papa, who was still sleepier than +Mamma. + +[Illustration: "Hush, Cicely there's a Rabbit"] + +"Good-night" was repeated in various tones, but one little voice +interrupted--it was that of Fuzz. + +"I'm not sleepy, Papa and Mamma; I'm not a bit sleepy. I'm sure it's +time to wake up, and that the summer's come back again. Brown-ears, +Snip and Peepy, won't you come out with me? Papa and Mamma can sleep a +little longer if they like." + +"Nonsense," Mrs. Dormouse said sleepily. + +And "Nonsense, brother," repeated the others, "don't disturb us." + +But Fuzz was obstinate and sure he knew best. + +He trotted off, looking back contemptuously at the five balls already +rolled up again. + +"Dear, dear! how silly they are to be sure," he said, when he found +himself out on the grass. "Why, it's certainly summer again! The +sunshine's so bright and warm, the birds are chirping so merrily. I +feel quite brisk. I think I'll take a ramble over the common to the +wood where our cousins the squirrels live, and hear what they have to +say about it." + +[Illustration: JUST WAKEING UP A LITTLE.] + +He cocked his ears and peeped about with his little sparkling eyes. +Suddenly he caught sight of something white at the foot of one of the +old trees. It was Cicely Gray in her summer flannel, which had been +pulled out of the wardrobe again to do honour to St. Martin. + +"Good morning, little dormouse," she said in her pretty soft voice, +"what are you doing out of your nest in late November? Do you think +summer's come back again already, my little man? If so, you've made a +great mistake. Take warning, and don't stray far from your home, or +you may find yourself in a sad plight. This lovely weather can't last +many days." + +Fuzz looked at her. + +"Thank you, miss," he replied, for, you see, he understood human talk, +though it is to be doubted if Cicely understood _him_. "She must +surely know," he reflected wisely, "and perhaps after all mamma was in +the right." + +So he scampered in to the nest again and rolled himself up beside the +others. + +That very evening the wind changed; the cold set in in earnest, and +for three months it was really severe. + +"I saw a little dormouse at the corner of the common yesterday," said +Cicely the next morning. "I advised him to go home again; he had come +out by mistake, thinking winter was over." + +"You funny girl," said her mother. "I hope he understood you and +followed your advice, poor little chap." + + + + +THE CHRISTMAS GUEST. + +FROM A TRUE INCIDENT. + + +She was a very poor little girl, very poor indeed; often--indeed +almost always--hungry, and thinly-clad, and delicate, but yet not +altogether miserable. No, far from it, for she had a loving mother who +did her poor best for her children. There were three or four of them +and Emmy was the eldest. She was only six, but she was looked upon as +almost grown-up, for father had died last year, and Emmy had to help +mother with "the little ones," as she always called them. + +They lived in a single room in one of the poorest and most crowded +parts of great London; in a street which was filled with houses of +one-room homes like their own. There was much misery and much +wickedness, I fear, too, in their neighbourhood; drinking, and +swearing, and fighting, as well as hunger, and cold, and sickness. But +compared with several years ago, when Emmy's mother herself had been a +girl living in much such a home as she now strove "to keep together" +for her fatherless babies, compared with that time, as she, and others +too, used often to say, "it was a deal better." There was less +drinking and bad language; there was less misery. For friends--friends +able and earnestly anxious to help--had taken up their abode in the +very next street to little Emmy's; the church had been "done up +beautiful," and _there_ there was always a welcome and a rest from the +troubles and worries at home; and the clergyman, as well as the kind +ladies who had come to live among their toiling, struggling brothers +and sisters, knew all about everybody and everything, knew who was ill +and who was out of work, knew who were "trying to be good" even among +the children, knew even the tiniest tots by name, and had always a +kind word and smile, however busy and hurried they were. + +[Illustration: "Emmy had to help Mother with the little ones"] + +And, thanks greatly to these kind friends, Emmy's life was not without +its pleasures. She loved the infant school on Sundays, she loved the +"treats"; once last summer--and Emmy was old enough now to remember +last summer well, though it seemed a very long time ago--there had +been a treat into the country, a real day in the country, where, for +the first time in her life, the child saw grass and trees. + +But it was far from summer time now, it was midwinter. Christmas was +close at hand, and winter had brought more than its usual troubles to +the little family. There were worse things this year than cold and +scant food, chapped hands and chilblained feet. Tiny, as they called +the baby but one, was very ill with bronchitis, the doctor could not +say if she would get better, and sometimes it seemed to the poor +mother as if it was hardly to be wished that she should. + +"She suffers so, poor dear, and seeing to her hinders me sadly with +my work. I do feel as if I'd break down at last altogether," she said +one evening--it was Christmas Eve--to a neighbour who had looked in to +see how things were going on. + +"And Emmy's looking pale," said the visitor, "she wants cheering up a +bit too. Let her come to church with me for a change. I'm going to the +evening service now." + +Emmy brightened up at this. She had not been at church last Sunday, +and, like most children, she was especially fond of going in the +evening. It seemed grander and more solemn somehow, when all was dark +outside. And the lights and warmth, and above all the music, were very +pleasant to the little girl. So with a parting word of advice to the +mother to keep up heart a bit longer--"things allus starts mending +when they get to the worst"--the kind neighbour set off, holding Emmy +by the hand. + +It was beautiful in church, the Christmas "dressing up," as Emmy +called it, had been completed that afternoon; to the child it seemed a +sort of fairy-land, though of fairy-land she had never heard. But she +had heard of heaven, which was better. + +"It could scarce be finer there," she thought to herself dreamily, as +she listened to the words of the service with a feeling that all was +sweet and beautiful, though she could actually understand but little. + +The sermon was short and simple. But Emmy was getting sleepy, and the +thought of poor mother, and Tiny with her hacking cough, mingled with +what she heard, till suddenly something caught her ear which startled +her into attention. The preacher had been speaking of the first +Christmas-day, concluding with some words about the morrow, when again +the whole Christian world would join in welcoming their Lord. For +"again He will come to us; again Jesus Himself will be here in the +midst of us, ready as ever to listen to our prayers, to comfort and +console." + +[Illustration: It was beautiful in church] + +Emmy was wide awake now. She scarcely heard the words of the carol, +she was in a fever of eager hopefulness. + +"_What_ a good thing I came to-night," she said to herself, "else I +mightn't ever have knowed it. I _would_ like to see Him first of all. +There'll be such a many, and He'll have such a deal to do. But it +wouldn't take Him that long to come round with me to see Tiny, and if +He does, like in the story, He'll cure her in 'alf a minute. I know +what I'll do"--and a little scheme formed itself in the childish +mind--"though I'll not tell mother," thought Emmy, "just for fear +like, I should be too late to catch Him." + +"'Twas a lovely sermon, and so touchin' too," said Emmy's friend to +another woman as they walked home. + +[Illustration: A LITTLE FIGURE CURLED UP IN THE PORCH.] + +"It strengthens one up a bit, it do," agreed her companion. "I'll try +my best to be round for the seven o'clock service in the morning." + +"Seven o'clock in the morning!" said Emmy to herself. "I'll best be +here soon after six." + +Christmas morning was _very_ cold. There was some frozen snow lying +hard and still white in the streets, and there was moonlight, pale and +clear. So it was light enough for one of the Sisters, entering the +church betimes, to distinguish a little figure curled up darkly in the +porch. A thrill of fear ran through her for a moment. Supposing it +were some poor child turned out by a drunken father, as sometimes +happened, frozen to death this bitter night? But no--the small +creature started to its feet. + +"Is it He? Has Jesus come?" she exclaimed. "Oh! do let me speak to Him +first." + +"My child!" exclaimed the sister, "what is it? Have you been dreaming? +Why, it is little Emmy Day. Have you been here all night?" + +"No, no," Emmy replied, her teeth chattering with cold, and the sob of +a half-feared disappointment in her voice. "No, no; I slipped out +while mother and all was still asleep. I'm waiting to ask Him to come +to our Tiny;" and she went on to tell what she had heard last night, +and what she had planned and hoped. + +Her friend took her into her own room for a few minutes, and there +gently and tenderly explained to Emmy her sweet mistake. And though +her tears could not all at once be stopped, the little girl trotted +back to her mother with comfort in her heart, and strange and +wonderful, yet beautiful new thoughts in her mind. + +"He is _always_ near, I can _always_ pray to Him," she whispered to +herself. + +And her prayers were answered. Tiny recovered, and thanks to the kind +Sisters, that Christmas Day was the beginning of better things for the +little family. + + + + +OLIVE'S TEA-PARTY. + +[Illustration: WRITING THE INVITATIONS] + + +"Mamma," said Olive one day, "I want to have a tea party." + +"Well, dear," mamma answered, "I dare say it could be managed. You +must talk to Cara and Louie about it, and settle whom you would all +like to ask." + +"No, no," said Olive, "I don't mean that. I won't have my sisters, +mamma. They like to ask big ones, and I want a party for my own self, +and no big ones. I want to fix everything myself, and I won't have +Cara and Louie telling us what to eat at tea, and what games to play +at. You may tell aunty to 'avite them to her house that day, mamma, +and let me have my own party; else I won't have it at all." + +Olive was eight. She was the youngest of three. It oftens happens that +the "youngest of three" fancies herself "put upon," especially when +the two elders are very near of an age and together in everything. But +this sudden stand for independence was new in Olive. Mamma looked at +her curiously. Had some foolish person been putting nonsense in her +little girl's head? + +"Cara and Louie are always kind to you about your little pleasures, +Olive," she said. "I don't understand why you should all at once want +to do without them." + +Olive wriggled. "But I do," she said. "Lily Farquhar says her big +sisters spoil her parties so, and they call her and her friends 'the +babies,' and laugh at them." + +"Are you going to invite Lily to your party?" asked mamma. + +"Yes, of course. She's my best friend, and she knows lots of games." + +"Very well. Then fix your day and invite your friends, and I will take +care that your sisters don't interfere." + +Olive looked very pleased. "I think next Wednesday would do," she +said. "It's our half-holiday, and if Cara will help me on Tuesday +evening I can get my lessons done, so that I needn't do any on +Wednesday. It's _howid_ to have to do lessons after a party," added +Olive, with a languid air. + +But mamma took her up more sharply than she expected. "Nay, nay, +Olive," she said, "that won't do. If your sisters are to have none of +the _pleasure_ of your party, you can't expect them to take any +trouble. You must manage your lessons as best you can." + +Olive pouted, but did not dare to say anything. Truth to tell, her +lessons at no time sat very heavily on her mind. + +"It won't be my fault if I don't do them on Wednesday," she said to +herself. "It'll be Cara's, and--and mamma's--so I don't care." + +She found the writing the invitations more trouble than she had +expected, and more than once did she wish she could have applied for +help to Louie, whose handwriting was so clear and pretty, and who +possessed such "ducky" little sheets of note-paper of all colours, +with a teapot and "come early" in one corner. Olive's epistles were +rather a sight to be seen; nearly all of them were blotted, and the +spelling of some of her friends' names was peculiar, to say the least. +Still they did their purpose, for in the course of the next day or two +the little hostess received answers, all accepting her "kind +invitation," except poor Amabel Pryce, who had so bad a sore-throat +that there was no chance of her being able to go out by Wednesday. And +in one note--from a little girl called Maggie Vernon--was something +which did not suit Olive's present frame of mind at all. + +"Harriot and I," wrote Maggie--Harriot was Maggie's sister--"will be +so pleased to come. We love a party at your house, because your big +sisters are always so kind." + +Olive showed this to her adviser and confidante, Lily. + +"Nonsense," said Lily, "she only puts that in because she thinks it +looks polite. She's a goose, and so is Harriot; they make such a fuss +about each other. They haven't the least bit of independence. Well, +never mind. If they don't like _your_ party, Olive, they needn't come +again." + +Olive felt consoled. But still--in her heart of hearts there was some +misgiving. What should she do if they all wanted to play different +games?--or if Bessy Grey tore her frock or spilt her tea and got one +of her crying fits, as happened sometimes, and there was no one--no +Cara or Louie to pet the nervous little girl into quiet and content +again? What should she do, if----? But Lily did not leave her time to +conjure up any more misfortunes. + +"What are you in a brown study about, Olive?" she said. "You _are_ so +stupid sometimes." + +To which Olive retorted sharply, and the friends ended their council +of war by a quarrel, which did not raise Olive's spirits. + +The great day came. Not very much had been said about it in the family +circle, naturally, for when one member of the family chooses to "set +up" for himself or herself, and keep all the rest "out of it," there +cannot be as much pleasant talk as when everybody is joined together +in the interest and preparation. And Olive could not help a little +sigh when, just before her guests came, she was called down to the +dining-room to see the tea all set out. It did look so nice! Mamma had +ordered just the cakes and buns Olive liked, and there were two or +three pretty plants on the table, and everything was just perfect. + +[Illustration: "The sound of subdued crying in one corner"] + +"I would have liked Cara and Louie to see it," thought Olive. "They +needn't have gone out quite so early." + +But the sound of the front-door bell ringing made her start. She ran +off quickly to be ready in the school-room to receive her little +friends. There were six of them. Lily Farquhar, of course, first and +foremost; then Maggie and Harriot, Bessie Grey looking rather +frightened and very shy, and two little cousins, Mary and Augusta +Meadowes, who lived next door. + +They all knew each other pretty well, so they were not _very_ silent +or stiff. Still as Olive could not speak to everybody at once, and was +very anxious that no one should feel neglected, she was not sorry when +the tea-bell rang. Lily was to pour out the chocolate, and Olive +herself to make the tea. It passed off pretty well, except for Lily's +spilling a good deal, and Olive's forgetting to put more water into +the teapot, so that the tea became dreadfully dark and strong. But the +cakes were approved of, and every one seemed content. Then came the +great question of "What shall we play at?" Lily, who was clever at +games, made herself a sort of leader, but she was not sensible enough +to fill the post well. She was selfish and impatient, and being only a +little girl herself, the others did not care "to be ordered about by +her." Then Bessie Grey got knocked down at Blind Man's Buff, and of +course she began to cry, and to say she wouldn't play any more if they +were so rough. Maggie Vernon tried to soothe her, but Bessie pushed +her away saying she didn't "understand," she wanted her mother, or +next best, Cara or Louie, who were always "so kind." And the little +Meadowes, being themselves but very small people, looked as if they +were going to cry too; declaring that they would rather not play at +all if they needed to run about so very fast. So Blind Man's Buff was +given up and something quieter tried--Dumb Crambo, I think. But it was +not very successful either, the little Meadowes needed so much +"explaining," which no one was patient enough, or perhaps wise enough, +to give clearly. And Lily insisted on being first always, and there +was no one in authority to keep her "in her place," where, when she +really felt she _must_ stay there, she could be a pleasant and bright +little girl. So game after game came to a bad end, and as the children +grew tired and their spirits went down, things grew worse and worse, +till at last--no, I can best describe it by telling what mamma +saw--when feeling rather anxious as to the results of Olive's fit of +independence, she put her head in at the school-room door an hour or +two after tea. + +There was silence in the room except for the sound of subdued crying +in one corner, which came, not from Bessie Grey--that would not have +been surprising--but from the smallest Meadowes child, who had torn +her frock and refused to listen to comfort from either her sister or +Maggie. Harriot stood close by, and ran forward as the door opened. + +"Oh, has our nurse come?" she said eagerly. "She's so kind, I'm sure +she'd mend Gussie's frock, and then _her_ nurse wouldn't scold." + +"Our nurse isn't cross really," said Mary. "It's only that Gussie's +silly. I think she's too little to come to a party." + +Then catching sight of "mamma" the little girl grew red, and all the +others looked frightened--such of them as saw mamma, that is to say. +For Bessie Grey, after a long fit of sobbing, had fallen asleep on the +floor, poor child, and--what _do_ you think Olive and Lily were doing? +Each with a story-book in her hand, they were comfortably reading at +different corners of the room, heedless of the other children's +dullness and tiredness. + +"I want to go home," wailed Gussie. On which Bessie suddenly awoke, +and began to cry again. + +"Please, Gussie _is_ rather tired," said the motherly little Mary. "Do +you think we might go home without waiting for nurse, as it's so +near?" + +"And might we be getting our things on too?" said Maggie and Harriot. + +Poor Mamma! She could scarcely speak, so ashamed did she feel. + +"_Olive!_" she exclaimed. How Olive and Lily too did jump! "Is this +the way you take care of your guests?" + +"They were so stupid," murmured Olive. "And Lily would be leader, and +she was so cross. I thought it was best to leave off playing." + +"Come, my poor dear children," said mamma, turning to the five little +girls. "Don't cry, Bessie dear, or you either, Gussie. We'll get your +frock mended in a minute, and Cara and Louie will give you a nice game +of musical chairs in the drawing-room to cheer you up before you go +home. There is some fruit waiting for you too." + +She marshalled them all off, smiles and chatter soon replacing the +tears and yawns. Mamma stopped at the doorway. + +"Miss Lily Farquhar," she said, quietly, "you had best remain here and +enjoy your book till you are sent for." + +To Olive she said not one word. But it was a very humble and penitent +little girl who came that evening to tell her mother and sisters _how_ +sorry she was, and _how_ foolish and selfish and ungrateful she now +saw that she had been. + +If Olive ever gives another tea-party I think the _first_ guests she +invites will be her kind big sisters, Cara and Louie. + + + + +A LIVE DUMMY. + + +The Merediths were spending the autumn on the French coast, at a +sea-bathing place called Sablons-sur-mer. It is a nice bright little +place. I am afraid the inhabitants would be offended if they heard it +called "little," for they think it a very important town! It consists +of two long streets--one facing the sea, one inland, where the shops +and the houses of the people who live there all the year round, are. +And between these two streets run smaller ones--so small that they are +more passage-ways than streets. The most imposing one is called an +"arcade"; in it are the best shops, a bazaar of all sorts of fancy +things to delight children's eyes, from tin buckets and spades to dig +with in the sands, to rocking-horses, though not of a very expensive +kind. At one corner of this arcade is a large, ready-made tailor's +establishment; this shop, for reasons I will explain to you, divided +the children's attention with the bazaar. + +There were ever so many Merediths; three girls and two boys and a +couple of cousins. The Sablons people are accustomed to English +visitors, so the sight of this band of children was not startling to +them; and the little _messieurs_, and the _jeunes mees_, soon had +several friends in the place, whom they never passed without a +friendly nod and a _bon jour_ or _bon soir_, as the case might be. + +The cousins I have mentioned were not with the Merediths on their +first arrival. There had been some doubt of finding a house large +enough to take the whole party in, so Bessie and Hugh had waited at +their own home in the country in England in a state of frantic +anxiety, till one fine day came a letter from their aunt with the +delightful news that the children might be despatched as soon as they +could be got ready. + +Bessie and Hugh had never paid a visit to France before; so the two +new-comers had plenty of "guides" to explain everything to them, and +show them the "lions" of Sablons-sur-mer. Only one condition was made +by Lilian, the eldest and nearly "grown up" Meredith girl. Bessie and +Hugh _must_ manage not to seem like English tourists "gaping about +with guide-books in their hands, and looking as if they had never been +out of an English country village." + +"But we scarcely ever have been," said Bessie; "at least, only when we +go to grandmamma's at Cheltenham, and Hugh was once three days in +London." + +"That doesn't matter," said Miss Meredith; "you needn't look like some +of the English people one sees over here. I feel quite ashamed +sometimes to own them for my country people." + +Bessie was too much in awe of her big cousin to ask her to explain +more exactly what it was she was not to do, or to "look." But she +resolved to herself to be on her very best behaviour, and Madge and +Letty assured her it would be "all right"--she needn't talk French +when there was any one who "mattered" to hear, and she needn't _seem_ +as if things were strange to her, that was what Lilian minded. + +[Illustration: The Arcade] + +"Mayn't I look in at the shop-windows, even?" asked Bessie, rather +dolefully. + +Shop-windows were very delightful and charming to the little country +cousin. + +"Of course you may. Every body does," said Letty; "especially at the +bazaar. It's not windows; it's all open, you know, like stalls at a +market," explained Madge; "it's a regular bazaar. Not look at it!--why +it's _made_ to be looked at. And oh; Bessie," Letty went on again, +"you _will_ be amused at the big tailor's, or ready-made clothier's, +as mamma calls it, at the corner of the arcade. It's something like +Madame Tussaud's--such a lot of wax dummies at the door. And they +change their clothes every few days. Some of them are quite big, like +men; and some little boys. They've got one now which they _think_ is +dressed like an English sailor-suit boy--you never saw such a +costume! And there's a man in a red coat--our boys say he is meant to +be an English 'milord' dressed for 'the hunt.'" + +[Illustration: The Dummies] + +When Bessie saw the bazaar she was as full of admiration of it as even +Madge and Letty could desire, especially of the big tailor's. There +was a brilliant show of figures, from the little wax boy in imaginary +English sailor costume, to a moustached gentleman elaborately got up +in evening suit, white tie and all. + +"Oh, how funny they are!" Bessie exclaimed. "But I don't see the one +in the red coat." + +"He's not there to-day," said Madge. "Perhaps we'll see him again +to-morrow, in something different." + +"It must be great fun dressing, and undressing them," said Bessie. "Do +they change them nearly every day?" + +"Oh no, not so often as that. But we watch them always, to see." + +But for the next two or three days there was no change. Bessie looked +in vain for the red-coated one she was so curious to see. + +[Illustration: The New Dummy] + +Now I must tell you that there was sometimes a regiment, or part of a +regiment, at Sablons. They came for rifle-practice on the sands; and +there was always a great excitement when a new detachment came in. And +a few days after Bessie and Hugh made their appearance, the town was +awakened early one morning by the tramp of a number of red-coats, who +had marched over from an inland town, where there were large barracks. +Next day on their way home, as usual, from their morning bath, the +little girls passed through the arcade. Madge and Letty did not give +the dummies more than a passing glance, till suddenly they noticed +that Bessie had stayed behind. + +"There she is," said Letty; "she's staring at the figures. Why--is +that--?" and she hesitated. + +There she was, sure enough--Bessie, that is to say--standing in front +of a tall figure, a red-coated one in all the glory of a scarlet +uniform, and with several medals on the right breast, which the little +girl on her tip-toes was reaching up to and examining, one after +another, with great interest. Letty and Madge drew near and looked at +her with a curious misgiving. She glanced round. + +"Letty, Madge," she said, "do come here and look at this new dummy. +It's got a lot of medals, and----" + +She stopped with a little shriek. The "new dummy" had suddenly raised +its right arm, saluting Bessie with military precision as it stepped +slightly to one side, with the words-- + +"_A votre service, Mademoiselle._" + +"Oh, oh!" gasped Bessie. "It's alive--it's--it's a man, a living +soldier." + +And so the supposed dummy was! A young officer, who, happening like +the children themselves to be standing in front of the tailor's +staring at the figures, had actually been mistaken by Bessie for one +of the waxen group. He had entered into the joke, and remained +perfectly motionless while the little girl made her investigation, +doubtless explaining all to himself by the fact of her being a _jeune +mees_--one of that extraordinary English nation of whom it is +impossible to say what they won't do next. + +Oh, how ashamed Bessie was! How scarlet grew Letty and Madge! But +there was nothing to be done. The officer had already disappeared at +the other end of the arcade with a second friendly and smiling though +respectful salute. + +One thought struck the three children--Susanne, the maid, was +fortunately a little in advance and had not seen the strange mistake. + +"_Don't_ let's tell Lilian," they said. "She'd never get over it, she +really wouldn't." + +But mother--aunty as she was to Bessie--_was_ told, and comforted the +mortified and shamefaced little girl as well as she could. + +"After all," she said, "it was nothing _naughty_; Bessie had not meant +to be rude; and she was quite sure the officer had not thought her +so." + +Nor had he. But it was a very amusing story to relate; and if +Bessie had been within hearing of him when he told it to his +brother-officers, I think she _could_ not but have joined in their +laughter. + +[Illustration: Oh, Oh! It's ALIVE!] + + + + +A QUEER HIDING-PLACE + +[Illustration: A QUEER HIDING-PLACE BY MRS MOLESWORTH] + + +"Don't forget to give Theresa the pound from mamma," said Mabel, as +she kissed her cousin Eleanor one afternoon when saying good-bye. "I +must be quick; it's getting quite dark, and I was to be home early. +Come along, Fred." + +"You're sure you've got the pound, are you, Nelly?" asked Fred +mischievously. "Mamma told Mabel about it ever so many times. She's so +famous at remembering things herself, I like hearing her tell _you_ +not to forget." + +Eleanor put her hand into her pocket. + +"I _think_ I've got it," she said; "I remember it was wrapped in a +piece of blue paper, wasn't it? You gave it me just before we sat down +to play our duet, and I was to say it was for aunt's subscription +to--to--oh dear, I've forgotten," and she stood there in the hall, +where she had come down to see the last of her visitors, looking the +picture of perplexity. + +"Oh, you silly girl!" said Mabel, impatiently. "It is mamma's +subscription to Theresa's Christmas dinners' card. There now, don't +you remember? You are so dreadfully absent, Eleanor!" + +"I remember now--oh yes, of course. I won't forget again," said the +girl; "little" girl one could scarcely call her, for though she was +only thirteen she was as tall as her elder sister of eighteen. +"Good-night again, Mabel. I must be quick, for I have to write to +Charley before dinner. You know I dine late just now during the +holidays," she added proudly. + +"But the pound--the pound itself--have you got it?" repeated Fred. + +Again went Eleanor's hand to her pocket. + +"Oh dear, I forgot I was feeling for the pound," she exclaimed. "Yes, +here it is! I'll give it to Theresa quite rightly, you'll see." + +Eleanor hurried away to write her letter to Charley, for to-morrow +would be Indian mail-day, and she had put it off too late the week +before. + +[Illustration: for a course or two the pound was safe] + +"Now I _must_ give the pound to Theresa at once," she said, again +depositing it in her pocket when she changed her dress for dinner. +Something or other put it out of her head in the drawing-room--poor +Eleanor's head was not a very secure place to keep anything in for +long! It was not till she and her mother and Theresa and her +seventeen-years' old brother Mark were at table, and half way through +dinner, that the unlucky coin again returned into her memory. No +thanks to her memory that it did so! It was only when she pulled out +her handkerchief that the little paper packet came out with it and +fell onto the floor. + +"Oh," said Eleanor, as she stooped to pick it up, "what a good thing +I've remembered it! Here, Theresa, here's a pound for you from aunty, +for your--for the--oh, what is it? Your subscription for Christmas +cards--no, I mean your subscription-card for Christmas dinners--yes, +that's what it's for." + +"All right," said Theresa, quietly, "I understand. But I wish you had +given it me up-stairs, Nelly, I haven't got a pocket in this thin +skirt. Never mind," and she unwrapped it as she spoke, and placed it +on the table beside her. + +"There now," she said, "I can't forget it. It is too conspicuous on +the white cloth." + +The sisters were sitting next each other; that is to say, Theresa was +at one end with Mark opposite, and their mother and Eleanor were at +the sides. The table was small, though large enough for a party of +four. + +Not long was the gold coin allowed to rest peacefully where Theresa +had placed it. Eleanor's fingers soon picked it up. First she examined +it curiously by the light of the candle beside her, then when she had +satisfied herself as to its date and some other particulars, she took +to "spinning" it on the table. This was not very successful; to spin a +coin well requires a hard surface for it to twirl on. Eleanor tried +once or twice, then ended by "spinning" the sovereign on to the floor. +Down she ducked to pick it up again, thereby attracting her mother's +notice. + +"Nelly, my dear, what are you stooping down so awkwardly for?" she +said. + +"Oh," said Theresa, "it is all that pound. Do leave it alone, child, +or it will be getting lost altogether," and she took it out of her +sister's hand and put it under her wine-glass. "There," she said, +"don't touch it again." + +And for a course or two the pound was safe. But Theresa forgot that +wine-glasses are not a fixture; after a while the table was cleared of +them and the crumbs brushed away for dessert. The shining sovereign +was again exposed to full view. Mother, Theresa, and Mark were talking +busily about something interesting, Eleanor's ears were +half-listening, but her restless fingers were unoccupied. They seized +on the coin again, and a new series of experiments with it was the +result, even though she herself was but vaguely conscious what she was +about. At last just as she had found a new trick which amused the +babyish side of her brain greatly, came a remark which thoroughly +caught her attention. + +[Illustration: A diving process into the said pocket ensued] + +"The day after to-morrow, Nelly, don't forget," said Theresa, "I'm +going to have the Leonards at afternoon tea." + +And the talk ran upon the Leonards, till they rose to go upstairs to +the drawing-room. Then came the exclamation from Theresa. "My pound, +Nelly, have you touched it? I put it under my wine-glass, but of +course I forgot--the wine-glasses were changed. Henry," to the +footman, "didn't you see it when you moved the glasses? It _was_ +there." + +Henry grew red and stared. + +"Yes, ma'am, it was there. I saw it. I left it on the cloth." + +Eleanor stared too, though she did not grow red. + +"Yes," she said, "it was there. I took it up again, but I'm sure I did +nothing with it." + +Nevertheless a diving process into her pocket ensued--in vain; then +she got up and shook herself; then everybody began creeping and +crawling about on the floor--in vain; then Mark got down a candle +under the table, thereby, as it was in a high silver candle-stick, +nearly setting everything on fire; then--then--I need not describe the +well-known and most disagreeable experience of hunting for a lost +object, which of course + + "ere it comes to light, + We seek in every corner but the right." + +On the whole poor Henry had the worst of it. He was told to examine +"my tray," and to overhaul "my pantry," from top to bottom, which he +did with no result. I think he would gladly have gone down the +drain-pipe leading from "my sink," if he could have got into it. + +"It is an uncomfortable affair," said Nelly's mother gravely. "You see +the young man has so newly come." + +"But, mother, I am _sure_ I saw it after the dessert was on the table, +and the servants out of the room," said Eleanor eagerly. + +"Then, my dear, where is it?" + +You can fancy what an unsettled, spoilt evening it was. The ladies +went upstairs at last, but Mark would not give in. He stayed in the +dining-room by himself, searching like a detective. Suddenly there +came a shout of triumph. + +"I have found it," he called upstairs; "it is all right, Nelly." + +So it was--and where do you think it was? + +I will help you to guess by telling you one circumstance. There had +been _nuts_ at dessert. + +Well, what of that? + +The salt-cellars had been left on the table. And buried in one of +them, shining yellow and bright in the white powder, lay the coin! Was +it not clever of Mark to have thought of it? + +"Oh yes," said Eleanor, looking uncommonly ashamed of herself, "I +remember--I pressed it down on to the salt, and then I covered it up. +It looked so comfortable. Oh I _am_ so sorry!" + +See what comes of letting your fingers get into the way of "tricks," +and letting your wits go wool-gathering. + +But poor Henry's character was saved. + + + + +BLUE FROCKS AND PINK FROCKS + +[Illustration: BLUE FROCKS AND PINK FROCKS BY MRS MOLESWORTH] + + +Rosalind and Pauline Wyvill were not twins, though at first sight +nearly every one thought they were. Rosy was eleven and Paula only +nine-and-a-half, but Paula was very tall for her age, and Rosy, if +anything, small for eleven, so they were almost exactly the same +height. And though Paula was much fairer than her sister, who had +brown hair and rather dark grey eyes, still there was a good deal of +likeness between them, and they were generally dressed exactly the +same, which made them seem still more like twins. + +Their mother was particular about their dressing the same, but now and +then it was a little difficult to manage, for somehow Paula's frocks +and hats and jackets generally got shabby long before Rosy's, and if +an accident--such as tearing or burning or staining--was to happen, +it was perfectly sure to come to Paula's clothes, and not to her +sister's. In such cases, however, the misfortune had often to be +endured, for their mother could not of course afford to get new things +every time Paula's came to grief, though now and then she had to get +an extra frock or jacket of some stronger or stouter material for the +little girl to wear, if those the same as her sister's had been spoilt +past repair. + +It came to pass, one Christmas holiday, that the two children were +invited to spend a week with an aunt by themselves. It was the first +visit they had ever paid on their own account, and they were both +pleased and excited about it. + +This aunt was their father's elder sister. She was very kind, but not +_very_ much accustomed to young people, and in some of her ideas she +was perhaps extra particular and what people now-a-days call rather +"old-fashioned." + +"You must show your aunt that I have taught you to be very neat and +tidy," said their mother, a few days before the little girls were to +go, "for she is rather strict about such things; it may be a little +difficult for you, as you will have no maid of your own with you. +Whatever you do, be sure always to be dressed exactly alike, that is +one of the things that your aunt will notice the most." + +"Which of us must fix what we are to wear?" said Paula; "mayn't we +take it in turns?" + +"I don't think there should be any difficulty about it," said their +mother. "I should think it would be the nicest to consult together, +without any fixed rule." + +[Illustration: _The Aunt_ She was very kind but rather old-fashioned] + +"Oh, I daresay it will be all right," said Rosy, thinking to herself +that, as she was older than her sister, it would be only fair for her +generally to have the first choice. "Do you think we shall have the +same room, mamma?" + +"No," their mother replied. "I was forgetting to tell you that you are +to have two small separate rooms, as there will be other people +staying in the house, and the larger rooms will be needed for them, so +I have told Ann to pack up your things in two small boxes instead of +together, but remember you have everything exactly alike, so that +there will be no excuse for your not always being dressed the same. +And, Paula, I do hope you will manage not to spoil anything during +these few days." + +"No, mamma, I'll try not," Paula replied, but she spoke rather +absently, for she was not really attending to her mother's last words. + +"What a lot of settling it will take, every time we dress," she was +thinking to herself. "I hope we shan't quarrel about it." For it must +be owned that though Rosy was a very kind elder sister, she was +sometimes rather masterful, and that, though Paula would give in +readily enough when spoken to gently, _she_ could sometimes be very +obstinate, if not taken exactly in the right way. + +[Illustration: "she burst into tears"] + +This is not a story, as you might expect, of Paula's misfortunes in +the way of accidents to her clothes during their week's visit. More by +luck than good management, probably, no very important disaster of the +kind occured, and the first two or three days at their aunt's passed +prosperously. Paula gave in to Rosy's wishes as to what frocks they +were to wear, and indeed during the daytime there was not much chance +of difference of opinion, as, being winter, they had only two each, +Sunday and every-day ones. But their kind mother had given them some +new and pretty evening dresses, prettier than they had ever had +before, and the little girls were very much pleased with them. +Unluckily, however, they had a disagreement of taste about them, Rosy +preferring the pink ones and Paula the blue. + +On the third evening of their visit, an hour or so before it was time +to dress, they began talking about what they should put on, for coming +into the drawing-room before dinner. + +"It is the turn for our pink frocks to-night," said Rosy, in the very +decided way that always rather roused Paula's spirit of contradiction. +"And I'm very glad of it, for I like them ever so much the best." + +"I don't," replied Paula, rather crossly, "I think the blues twenty +times prettier, and we never fixed that we were to wear them in +turns." + +"Perhaps the blue suits you best," said Rosy, "but the pink suits me; +I heard somebody say so the night we came, and to-night is rather +particular, for you know it's uncle's birthday, and we are to go in to +dessert and sit up an hour later. It is only fair that I should have +what I like best, as I'm the eldest, besides it's the turn of the +pinks." + +"Nonsense about turns," said Paula, more crossly than before, "why +shouldn't I look nice too, on uncle's birthday? _I'll_ wear the blue." + +"And I'll wear the pink," said Rosy, with the most determined air. + +"You'll be punished for it if you do," said Paula, "just think how +vexed aunt will be if we're different, particularly to-night, when it +is going to be a regular dinner-party." + +"I shan't be punished worse than you," was Rosy's reply, "and I shan't +deserve it, and you will." + +It was not often the little sisters' quarrels went so far as this. +Paula felt herself getting so angry that she was afraid what she +mightn't be tempted to say next. + +She ran out of the room, banging the door behind her I am afraid, and +rushed upstairs, where she burst into tears; for anger makes children +cry quite as often as sorrow. But before she had been many minutes in +her own room, her tears grew gentler, for she was a kind-hearted and +loving little girl, and when she had bathed her face, to take away the +redness from her eyes, she ran downstairs again to look for Rosy and +make friends. But Rosy was not to be found anywhere--her aunt had +called her into the conservatory to help her with some flowers she was +arranging there, and after searching for her sister everywhere she +could think of, Paula had to go upstairs to dress, as the first gong +sounded. + +[Illustration: "MY DEAR CHILDREN, WHY ARE YOU NOT DRESSED ALIKE?"] + +"As soon as I have done my hair, I'll run to Rosy's room," she thought +to herself, but then another idea struck her, she would give Rosy a +pleasant surprise. "I'll put on the pink frock without telling her," +she thought, "she _will_ be pleased when she sees me with it on." And +she made haste with her dressing so that Rosy might find her already +in the drawing-room when she came down. + +Thus it was that when Rosy, who was a little late of being ready, +looked into Paula's room on her way downstairs, she found her sister +gone. And what do you think happened? there was Paula smiling and +pleased in the _pink_ frock, as Rosy, also smiling and pleased with +herself, walked in in the _blue_! + +But Aunt Margaret, when she caught sight of them, looked neither +smiling nor pleased. + +"My dear children," she said, in a tone of vexation, "why are you not +dressed alike? On your uncle's birthday too." + +The little girls' faces fell. + +"Oh, auntie," said Rosy, "it's all my fault, but I meant to please +Paula, by putting on the blue." + +"And I meant to please Rosy," said Paula, "by wearing the pink." + +And then the whole story was explained to their aunt, who could not +help smiling at the odd result of their wish to make up their quarrel. + +"Change your frocks," she said, "while we're at dinner, so that you +may be the same at dessert, that will put it all right." + +She made rather a mistake, for of course only one frock needed to be +changed; which it was I cannot tell you. I only know that they came +into dessert and took their place one on each side of their uncle, +dressed alike--in blue _or_ pink! + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + + +Inconsistent and archaic spelling and punctuation retained. + +P. 60: "tiniest trots by name" changed to "tiniest tots by name". + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man with the Pan Pipes, by +Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WITH THE PAN PIPES *** + +***** This file should be named 38761.txt or 38761.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/7/6/38761/ + +Produced by Delphine Lettau, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at +http://www.pgdpcanada.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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