“The Little-old-gentleman-who-really-is-(as-his-looking-glass-has-too-often-told-him)-like-a-monkey.”
To Clara this letter, when Mrs. Platts read it to her, seemed like something in a dream, but when the box was unpacked it was found to contain, truly enough, not only the identical doll which she had wanted, with cheeks like tulips and real black hair, but also frocks for it, and night-dresses and petticoats, and a card of tortoiseshell toilet requisites, and three hats, and a diabolo set, and a tiny doll’s parasol for Kensington Gardens on sunny days.
Poor Clara didn’t know what to do, and so she simply sat down with the doll in her arms and cried again; but this was a totally different kind of crying from that which had gone before. And when Kate Woodley came to take her to bed she cried too.
And the funny thing is that, though the little old gentleman’s present looks much more like a reward for being naughty than a punishment, Clara has hardly ever since said a quick unkind thing that she could be sorry for, and Miss Hobbs’s three questions are never wanted at all, and Kate Woodley has entirely given up clicking.
THE NOTICE-BOARD
THE NOTICE-BOARD
Once upon a time there was a family called Morgan—Mr. Morgan the father, Mrs. Morgan the mother, Christopher Morgan, aged twelve, Claire Morgan, aged nine, Betty Morgan, aged seven, a fox-terrier, a cat, a bullfinch, a nurse, a cook, a parlourmaid, a housemaid, and a boy named William. William hardly counts, because he came only for a few hours every day, and then lived almost wholly in the basement, and when he did appear above-stairs it was always in the company of a coal-scuttle. That was the family; and at the time this story begins it had just removed from Bloomsbury to Bayswater.
While the actual moving was going on Christopher Morgan, Claire Morgan, and Betty Morgan, with the dog and the bullfinch, had gone to Sandgate to stay with their grandmother, who, with extraordinary good sense, lived in a house with a garden that ran actually to the beach, so that, although in stormy weather the lawn was covered with pebbles, in fine summer weather you could run from your bedroom into the sea in nothing but a bath-towel or a dressing-gown, or one of those bath-towels which are dressing-gowns. Christopher used to do this, and Claire would have joined him but that the doctor forbade it on account of what he called her defective circulation—two long words which mean cold feet.
When, however, the moving was all done and the new house quite ready, the three children and the dog and the bullfinch returned to London, and getting by great good luck a taxicab at Charing Cross, were whirled to No. 23, Westerham Gardens almost in a minute, at a cost of two-and-eightpence, with fourpence supplement for the luggage. Christopher sat on the front seat, watching the meter all the time, and calling out whenever it had swallowed another twopence. The first eightpence, as you have probably also noticed, goes slowly, but after that the twopences disappear just like sweets.
It is, as you know, a very exciting thing to move to a new house. Everything seems so much better than in the last, especially the cupboards and the wall-papers. In place of the old bell-pulls you find electric bells, and there is a speaking-tube between the dining-room and the kitchen, and the coal-cellar is much larger, and the bath-room has a better arrangement of taps, and you can get hot water on the stairs. But, of course, the electric light is the most exciting thing of all, and it was so at Westerham Gardens, because in Bloomsbury there had been gas. But Mr. Morgan was exceedingly serious about it, and delivered a lecture on the importance—the vital importance—of always turning off the switch as you leave the room, unless, of course, there is some one in it.