CHAPTER II.
PREPARATION.
"Well, Dorothy Dormouse!" exclaimed Canon Percival, when he came into the drawing-room after dinner that evening.
"Don't call me Dorothy Dormouse, Uncle Crannie."
"Oh, but we call people what they are; and when little girls roll up into a ball, and sleep away their time, they are like nothing so much as—dormice."
"Mother has been telling you at dinner all about my dream, Uncle Crannie. I know she has, else how do you know?"
"Oh, perhaps one of the swallows told me. I say, Dorothy, I have to talk seriously to you for once. I am not joking this time."
Dorothy looked up in her uncle's face, and saw that he really did look grave—almost sad.