Page:Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy, Stockton, 1872.djvu/200

190 so gay and bright, and smelling so sweet and contented, that she should have to lie there on her little bed until her Aunt Ann came with that horrible soap and towel! She made up her mind! She wouldn't stand it; she would run away before she came to wash her. For one morning she would be happy.

So up she jumped, and without stopping to dress herself, ran out among the birds and flowers.

She rambled along by the brook, where the sand felt so nice and soft to her bare feet; she wandered through the woods, where she found blackberries and wild strawberries, and beautiful ferns; and she wandered on and on, among the rocks and the trees, and over the grass and the flowers, until she sat down by a great tree to rest. Then, without intending anything of the kind, she went fast asleep.

She had not slept more than five minutes, before along came a troop of fairies, and you may be assured that they were astonished enough to see a little girl lying fast asleep on the grass, at that time in the morning.

"Well, I never!" said the largest fairy, who was the Principal One.

"Nor I," said the Next Biggest; "it's little Bridget, and with such a dirty face! Just look! She has been eating blackberries and strawberries and raspberries too, for all I know; for you remember, brother, that a face dirtied with raspberries is very much like one dirtied with strawberries."

"Very like, indeed, brother," said the Principal One, "and look at her feet! She's been walking in the wet sand!"

"And her hands!" cried the Very Least, "what hands! They're all smeared over with mixtures of things."

"Well," said the Next Biggest "she is certainly a dirty little girl, but what is to be done?"