Milly and Olly

rney

Table of

always with them, teaching them their lessons, playing with them in the garden, telling them stories, mending their frocks, tucking them up in their snug little beds at night, sometimes praising them, sometimes scolding them; always loving and looking after them. Milly and Olly honestly believed that theirs was the best mother in the whole world. Nobody else could find out such nice plays, or tell them such wonderful stories, or dress dolls half so well. Two little neighbours of theirs, Jac

of paper, blue mats, and pink mats, and yellow mats, and red mats; she had learned how to make a bit of soft clay look like a box, or a stool, or a bird's nest with three clay eggs inside it; she had begun to add up and take away; and, above all, she had begun to learn geog

e was a tease, she loved her nurse, whom she and Olly called Nana, and who had been with them ever since Milly was born; and she loved Fr?ulein, and was always begging flowers from her mother that she might take them to school for Fr?ulein's table. So you see Milly was made up of loving. And she was a thoughtful little girl too, tidy with her dress, quick and quiet at her lessons, and always ready to sit still with her fairy-book or her doll, when mother was busy or tired. But there were two things in which Milly was not at all sensible in spite of her sensible face

I to tell yo

he liked his tea, he liked everything in the world, except learning to read, and that he hated. He could only do one thing besides mischief. He could sing all kinds of tunes-quick tunes, slow tunes, and merry tunes. He had been able to sing tunes ever since he was quite a tiny baby, and his father and mother often talked together

en I began to tell you about them, and it is time you should hear of what

frocks were very dirty, Mattie had a leg broken, and Katie's paint had been all washed off one wet night, when Olly left her out on

without my

will take Katie. Mother always sends us away when we get white faces to make us look ni

ter give me the doll you want directly, for it is time I packed all the t

and his cart and horse with a box of bricks standing up in it with the other. He wo

must do mischief if you won't let m

Olly, and you'll have ever so many new thin

y," said Milly, "and the little ri

y, looking ready to cry. "I d

ring me your bricks and your big ball, and your

room. When nurse came back she saw nobody in the nursery. Milly had gone out in the garden, Olly was nowhere to be see

Spot!" ca

bewitched. Nurse took out the frocks, and there was the children's collar-box, a large round cardboard-box with a lid, jumping from side to side like a box in a fairy tale; and such dreadful pitiful little mews coming from the inside! Nurse undid the lid, and out sprang Spot like a flash of lightning, and ran as if she were running for her life out of the door and down the stairs, and safe

ike to go in my box? and she said, Yes; and I made her such a comfy bed, and then I stu

hered poor little Spot? And look at all these frocks; do you think

on a high chair with a picture-book, where she could see all he was doing. There was

never could say. So to bed he went at half-past six, and his head had scarcely touched the pillow two minutes before he had gone cantering away into dreamland, and was seeing all the sights and hearing all the delicious stories that children do see and hear in dreamland, though they don't always

st six o'clock, and I can't have you out of bed till seve

are toes half way into his stockings. "I can't keep still in my bed all such a long time. There's something inside of

as could be seen through his curls. "A nice helping that would be. Come back

the breakfast things laid. Then nurse gave him his bath and dressed him, and put him up to eat his bread and milk while

e of the house while they were away; and then crack went the whip, and off they went to the station. On the way they passed Jacky and Francis standing at their gate, and all the children waved their hats and shouted "Hurrah! hurrah!" At the station nur

ere was; and in the middle of it "whew" went the

ry now and then came great bushes of wild-roses, some pink and some white, and long pools with yellow irises growing along the side; and sometimes the train went rushing through a little village, and they could see the little children trotting along to school, with their books and slates tucked under their arms; and sometimes they went along for miles together without seei

etting slower and slower till

!" shouted Olly, jump

of him, "we shall stop five more times before

f such a bustle, as it seemed to Milly. There were crowds of people at the sta

illy, with an anxious little fa

father had put them safe into their new train, into a carriage marked

urite game of the children's, a romping game, where everybody ran about and pretended to be somebody else, and where the more people played, and the more they ra

Snow White and Rose Red." She had read it a hundred times before, but that never mattered a bit. Olly came to sit on nurse's knee while she showed him pictures, and so the time passed away. And now the train stopped again, and father lifted Olly on his knee to see a great church far

went to sit on his father's knee, then on mother's, then on nurse's-none of

"You are just tired and hot. This is a long way fo

ight up, with a little flushed face and wide-op

tucking himself up in a shady corner; "so you go

g like a soft mat over nurse's arm. Milly, too, shut her eyes and sat very still; she did not mean to go to sleep, but presently she began to think a great many sleepy thoughts: Why did the hedges run so fast? and why did the telegraph wires go up and d

ith a start. "Why, Olly and I have been asleep nea

dy for dinner, and hungry people sitting round it. What fun it was having dinner at a station, with all the grown-up people. Milly and Olly thought there never was such nice bread and such nice apple-tart. Nothing at home ever tasted half

they look like ugly little twisted dwarfs, as if some cruel fairy had touched them with her wand. But Olly soon forgot all about them; and he began to wander from one end to the other of the carriage again, scrambling and jumping about, till he gave himself a hard knock against the seat; and that made him begin to cry-poor tired little Olly. Then mother lifted him on to her knee, and said to him, very softly, "Are you very tired, Olly? Never

ning over, and there before them lay the dancing windy blue sea, covered over with little white wa

y, pointing with his little brown hand

es live there. For those are the mountains,

ss the sea to them?" asked

ber bays in your geography? We can't go across it, but we can g

to the sea, the mountains began to grow taller and taller. What had happened to the houses too? They had all turned white or gray; there was no red one left. A

xes and put them in the carriage that was waiting for them, and then in they tumbled, nurse having first wrapped them up in big shawls, for it was evening now, and the wind had grown cold. That was a nice drive home among the mountains. How tall and

shouted Olly, in a little sharp tired voice, and hi

ing about people they knew quite well. And now came a little town, the town of Wanwick mother called it, right among the mountains, with a river running round it, and a tall church spire. It began to get darker and darker, and the trees hung down

m the way upstairs to the nursery. Such a nice nursery, with candles lit, and a little fire burning, two bowls of hot bread and milk on the table, and in the corner two little white