Page:Oswald Bastable and Others - Nesbit.djvu/233

Rh Of course, Fina was never allowed to shake it herself.

'Where did it come from?' She asked this question every time she was shown the pagoda.

'It came from the Emperor of China's own Summer Palace at Pekin,' Miss Patty always said; but my brother Bob never would tell me how he got it.'

Then, when Fina had had a last peep through the windows of the pagoda, the glass case would be put on again, and Fina would be told to 'run along now and play.'

One day she was 'running along and playing' when she met a playfellow. It was a fat foxhound puppy, very clumsy and very affectionate. They had a romp together, and then the puppy blundered off, and Fina went indoors to wash her hands, because the puppy's idea of a romp had been a roll in the dust, which Fina had gladly consented to share.

But as she passed the door of the best parlour she stopped a minute, for the door was open. It was the day for cleaning out the room, but Miss Patty had stopped in the middle of the cleaning to go to the back-door to see a pedlar who had some really wonderful bargains in handkerchiefs