A FAIRY STORY.
"a cat was lying ... upon a chair"
oo small! too small!" so the birds sang, so the roses whispered, so the bees hummed.
"She will creep in at the window," said the mother, who was kneeling beside a little child. "Only a small child can do that."
But the window shut down suddenly with a bang, and the house to which it belonged began to move away, slowly at first, then quicker and quicker, until it was out of sight altogether. The child began to sob, and said—
"Nan will run after it."
Ah! such a flutter among the roses, and such a twittering amongst the birds, whilst the bees hummed—
"Too small, too small!
She should be tall,
If she would catch the house at all."
And the birds sang—
"She must grow,
We all do know;
And that's a process very slow."
"It will be years," said the mother, "before she grows tall."
"Pooh! porridge!" said a toy dog that was lying on the ground.
The mother turned round.
The little dog was standing upright, and had pricked up his ears.
"Porridge, porridge!" he said, and he kept saying it over so many times that at last the mother thought there must be something in it.