Excerpt
CHAPTER I Making Plans
“Milly, come down! come down directly! Mother wants you. Do make haste!”
“I’m just coming, Olly. Don’t stamp so. Nurse is tying my sash.”
But Master Olly went on stamping, and jumping up and down stairs, as his way was when he was very much excited, till Milly appeared. Presently down she came, a sober fair-haired little 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 looked older than six. At any rate she looked a great deal older than Olly, who was nearly five; and you will soon find out that she was a good deal more than a year and a half wiser.
“What’s the matter, Olly? What made you shout so?”
“Oh, come along, come along;” said the little boy, pulling at his sister’s hand to make her run. “Mother wants to tell us something, and she says it’s a nice something, and I kissed her like anyfing! but she wouldn’t tell me without you.”
Then the two children set off running, and they flew down a long passage to the drawing-room, and were soon scrambling about a lady who was sitting working by the window.
“Well, monkeys, don’t choke me before I tell you my nice something. Sit on my knee Olly. Now, Milly, guess—what have father and I just been talking about?”
“Sending Olly to school, perhaps,” said Milly. “I heard Uncle Richard talking about it yesterday.”
“That wouldn’t be such a nice something,” said Olly, making a long face. “I wouldn’t like it—not a bit. Boys don’t never like going to school. I want to learn my lessons with mother.”
“I know a little boy that doesn’t like learning lessons with mother very much,” said the lady, laughing. “But my nice something isn’t sending Olly to school, Milly. You’re quite wrong—so try again.”
“Oh, mother! is it a strawberry tea?” cried Milly. “The strawberries are just ripe, I know. Gardener told nurse so this morning. And we can have tea on the lawn, and ask Jacky and Francis!”
“Oh, jolly!” said Oliver, jumping off his mother’s knee and beginning to dance about. “And we’ll gather them ourselves—won’t you let us, mother?”
“But it isn’t a strawberry tea even,” said his mother. “Now, look here, children, what have I got here?”
“It’s a map—a map of England,” said Milly, looking very wise. Milly had just begun to learn geography, and thought she knew all about maps.
“Well, and what happens when father and I look at maps in the summertime?”
“Why,” said Milly, slowly, “you and father pack up your things, and go away over the sea, and we stay behind with nurse.”
“I don’t call that a nice something,” said Olly, standing still again.
“Oh, mother, are you going away?” said Milly, hanging round her mother’s neck.
“Yes, Milly, and so’s father, and so’s nurse”—and their mother began to laugh.
“So’s nurse?” said Milly and Olly together, and then they stopped and opened two pairs of round eyes very wide, and stared at their mother....