Page:Stories told to a child.djvu/78

. 'Go up with Miss Rosamond, and show her the room; there, go away, my dear, till tea-time.'

So I went up stairs demurely, not the less so because Deborah kept looking at me; and when we got into the garret I found it perfectly empty, literally empty of furniture, excepting that there was one ottoman footstool on the floor which was heaped with paper parcels.

'Well, now,' said Deborah, addressing herself, 'didn't I say, over and over again, that I would contrive a table for this child—what a head I have!' and so saying, she flounced out of the room, bringing back, in a few minutes, the smooth lid of a very large deal box, and two light bedroom chairs. Setting them some distance apart, she laid the flat lid on their seats, and it made a capital table, just the right height for me to sit before on the ottoman. She quickly picked up the parcels, and laying them on my table, exclaimed, 'There, missy, now see if that is not a good half-crown's worth. Mistress said you were to play up here, and when I told her there was nothing to play with, she said I might go to the shop down town, and lay out half-a-crown. See here!'

I opened the parcels, and found in one, to my great joy, a dozen Dutch dolls, with lanky legs, and high plaited hair, fastened with the conventional golden comb that Dutch dolls always wear; in another I found a toy-box of pewter tea-things, and a similar box of lambs upon a movable stretcher; and in two more was a quantity of doll's furniture. I was exceedingly content, the more so when Deborah, going out again, presently appeared with a bandbox full of odds and Rh