Page:Stories told to a child.djvu/80

 a cross nurse does now and then overshadow it with gloom.

Well, there I was. In due time I was called down to tea, and asked whether I liked my playroom. I said I did, and that I was very happy. My relation answered, as if to be contented and happy was a merit—'Good child.' After that she gave me some shrimps, and when tea was over sent me out for a walk on the beach. The servant who walked with me was as silent as her mistress. I came home, went to bed, and got up again the next day, still feeling very happy; but the quietude of everything around me was working its due and natural effect in making me quieter still. To meet it, and to harmonize with it, I did not talk aloud to my Dutch dolls, nor scold them in imitation of our nurse's accents; but I whispered to them, and moved about my playroom noiselessly. 'Are you happy, my dear?' asked my relation again, when I came down to dinner; and I answered again, 'Yes, ma'am.' And so several days passed, and the servants, as well as the mistress, praised me, and called me the best and the quietest child that ever came into a house—no trouble at all, and as neat as a nun! But I was beginning to be strangely in want of change. I wished my sister Bella, or even my noisy brother Tom, could see my twelve dolls, all dressed in the grandest gowns possible, and could help me to dry the sea-weeds that I brought in from the sea-beach. On the fourth day I bethought myself of the two books, and I well remember taking one of them to the little open window, laying it down on the sill, and opening it. What a Rh