Page:Zodiac stories by Blanche Mary Channing.pdf/21

4 her cheery voice. "We are going to make her so happy that she will be surprised when the year is over,—it will have passed so quickly!"

When Ethelind came down-stairs, Aunt Ellen took her out to the kitchen and showed her five lovely little kittens curled up in a basket, and that was the wonderful thing!

One afternoon when she had been a few days at the Lodge, Ethelind was sitting on the floor of Grandpapa's study with a big book in her lap. The study was a very attractive room, and Ethelind liked to sit there. It had a low ceiling with a heavy oaken beam across it, as is common in old English houses, and a big fireplace, where there was generally a flicker of flame wreathing itself around a mossy log. Round-faced roses nodded at the windows, and there was nearly always a robin singing in the laurel tree near.