The Brownies & Other Tales

CONTENTS.


THE BROWNIES

THE LAND OF LOST TOYS

THREE CHRISTMAS TREES

AN IDYLL OF THE WOOD

CHRISTMAS CRACKERS

AMELIA AND THE DWARFS




THE BROWNIES.


A little girl sat sewing and crying on a garden seat. She had fair
floating hair, which the breeze blew into her eyes, and between the
cloud of hair, and the mist of tears, she could not see her work very
clearly. She neither tied up her locks, nor dried her eyes, however;
for when one is miserable, one may as well be completely so.

"What is the matter?" said the Doctor, who was a friend of the
Rector's, and came into the garden whenever he pleased.

The Doctor was a tall stout man, with hair as black as crow's feathers
on the top, and grey underneath, and a bushy beard. When young, he had
been slim and handsome, with wonderful eyes, which were wonderful
still; but that was many years past. He had a great love for children,
and this one was a particular friend of his.

"What is the matter?" said he.

"I'm in a row," murmured the young lady through her veil; and the
needle went in damp, and came out with a jerk, which is apt to result
in what ladies called "puckering."

"You are like London in a yellow fog," said the Doctor, throwing
himself on to the grass, "and it is very depressing to my feelings.
What is the row about, and how came you to get into it?"

"We're all in it," was the reply; and apparently the fog was
thickening, for the voice grew less and less distinct--"the boys and
everybody. It's all about forgetting, and not putting away, and leaving
about, and borrowing, and breaking, and that sort of thing. I've had
Father's new pocket-handkerchiefs to hem, and I've been out climbing
with the boys, and kept forgetting and forgetting, and Mother says I
always forget; and I can't help it. I forget to tidy his newspapers for
him, and I forget to feed Puss, and I forgot these; besides, they're a
great bore, and Mother gave them to Nurse to do, and this one was lost,
and we found it this morning tossing about in the toy-cupboard."

"It looks as if it had been taking violent exercise," said the Doctor.
"But what have the boys to do with it?"