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A LITTLE GIRL IN A BOOK

HRISTABEL was a little girl who read a great many books. She noticed that the girls and boys in the books were not altogether like the girls and boys who played with her in the Square and came to tea with her. The children in the books were wonderfully brave and clever; and when they were having their magnificent adventures they always did exactly the right thing at the right moment. They never had a dull minute, and they never said anything silly. The girls and boys who came to tea with Christabel were not like this, and Christabel knew that she herself was not like this. She never had any adventures, and she knew that even if she ever did have one she would not behave at all bravely or cleverly. And she was often so dull that she drummed with her fingers on the window and said—

"What on earth shall I do?"

Now, Christabel had a Big Sister who wrote books.

One day she said to her Big Sister—

"How I do wish I were a little girl in a book! Nothing ever happens to little girls in real life. It is so dull!"

The Big Sister went on writing, and said nothing.

"It's no use talking to her," thought Christabel, "because she always goes on writing."

A few days after this Christabel began to feel rather strange. A kind of stiffness came into all her limbs, so that they would not do what she told them. And sometimes she found herself saying things that she had not intended to 79