Milly and Olly

ng P

Table of

down directly! Mother wa

y. Don't stamp so. Nu

le maiden, with blue eyes and a turn-up nose, and a mouth that was generally rather solemn-looking, though it could laugh merrily enough when it tried. Milly was six years old. She l

er, Olly? What m

to make her run. "Mother wants to tell us something, and she says it's a nice

n a long passage to the drawing-room, and were soon scra

nice something. Sit on my knee Olly. Now, Milly, g

," said Milly. "I heard Uncle Ri

long face. "I wouldn't like it-not a bit. Boys don't never l

r very much," said the lady, laughing. "But my nice something isn'

rries are just ripe, I know. Gardener told nurse so this mornin

's knee and beginning to dance about. "And we'll

n," said his mother. "Now, look he

king very wise. Milly had just begun to learn

when father and I look a

er pack up your things, and go away over

ce something," said Oll

away?" said Milly, hangin

er, and so's nurse"-and th

stopped and opened two pairs of round eyes very wide, and

f monkeys?" said their mother, catching hold of the two children and

good! But where are we going

kets and spades, and we'll paddle and catch crabbies, and wet our clothes, and have fu

place mother loves better than the sea, though perhaps you children mayn't like it quite so well. We're going to the mountains. Uncle Richar

ver seen a hill higher than the church steeple. "Th

kes you a whole day to get up to the top of them, and a whole day to get down again. Doesn't it, mother? Fr?ulein told me all about mountains in my geography. And some

tains, kind, easy mountains, not too high for you and me to climb up, and covered

Uncle Richard's house, and are ther

middle of it, so perhaps Olly may have a paddle sometimes, though we aren't going to the sea. And the gardener has got two little children, just about your age, Aunt Mary says: and there are two

and then said quickly, "Aunt Emma, isn't it, moth

ncle Richard's house, in a dear old house, where I spent many, many happy days when I was small. Great-grandpapa and grandmamma were alive then. But now Aunt Emma lives t

any pussies, mot

get on with Polly very well, so they

tter than pollies,

ou know about p

hey do. There was a pol

ssies scratch

who was just then very much in love with a white kitten, a

Emma's Polly till you've seen her," said Mrs. Norton.

ite their mother, with their little heads ful

ig ball, and my whistle, and my wheelbarrow, and my

d be no room for our clothes. You can take your whistle, and the top, and the pi

u won't want any toys. But now, look here, children," and she held up

eography lesson-come, Olly. Now mother'll t

fun a bit. It's only girls like lessons-Boys never

Come and see if it isn't interesting," sai

ved. It is a little town in Oxfordshire, and if you look long

y triumphantly, showing

f her pocket and drew a little line along the map. "First of all

llowing where the pencil po

so perhaps it doesn't deserve a better na

-what a funny name, mother!-and then Wigan, and then Warrington, and then Lancaster. Ox-en-holme

fought their neighbours. And at Crewe we shall get out and have our dinner. And at Wigan all the trees grow on one side as if some one had come and given them a push in the night; and at Lancaster there's another old castle, a very famous one, only now they have turned it into a prison, and people are shut up inside it. Then a little way after Lancaster you'll begin to see s

they saw her face shining and her eyes as bright as th

ly, "you'll let us take Sp

kitten, so Milly and

ther she'd like it, Olly," said Mrs. No