"Just hang it out on the lilac-bush,—mind, the lilac-bush!"
"Yes, M'am!"
"Or, Lizzie, wait: I'll do it myself!"
NOW SPRING HAS COME.
A CONFIDENCE.
"When the spring-time comes, gentle Annie, and the flowers are blossoming on the plain!
Lal, lal, la, la, la, lallallalla, lal, lal, lal, la, la, la, la, la.
When the spring-time comes, gentle Annie, and the mockin'-bird is singing on the tree!"
"I don't believe that mocking-bird line belongs to the song at all, Lizzie; you never do get a thing right!"
The words have a partly irritated, partly contemptuous tone, that seems oddly at variance with the size of the child who utters them. She is lying flat on her stomach on the floor, resting her elbows at each side of a book she is reading, holding her sharp chin in the palms of her hands, waving her skinny legs in unconscious time to the half tired, half feverish lilt of the nurse as she jogs the baby in time to the tune. She gazes, as she speaks, at the girl with a pair of unusually bright, penetrating eyes. This mocking-bird line never fails to annoy her.