Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 3.djvu/198

 Fanny, as the last words went echoing through the room and died away.

"How any one can be lonely with us for friends is hard to understand," said another voice from the bookcase. "Here we are, lots of us, rows of us, regiments of us; every sort of story book; here's fairy tales new and old; here's Robinson Crusoe and dear old Mother Goose, Mrs. Barbauld and Miss Edgeworth; here's German picture books and French fables, English games and American notions, of every kind. Come and read us, come and read us, and never say again you have no friends, and nothing to do."

There was such a noise that no one heard Fanny laugh out, for each book was shouting its own title and making such a stir it sounded like a wind blowing dry leaves about.

"I don't wish to intrude myself, for I'm not literary, nor musical, nor botanical; but I am domestic, and have an eye for all useful things," said a needle, in a sharp tone, as it sat bolt upright in Fanny's topsy-turvy basket, on the table.

"I am woman's friend, and with my help she does a deal of good, whiles away many long hours,