“I have got a great many little things,” continued Miss Anne, “which I don’t want myself, and which I should be very glad to give away to some little girl, for playthings, if I only knew of some one who would take care of them. I don’t want to have them scattered about the house, and lost, and destroyed.”
“O, I will take care of them, Miss Anne,” said Lucy, very eagerly, “if you will only give them to me. I certainly will. I will put them in my treasury, and keep them very safe.”
“If I were a little girl, no bigger than you,” said Miss Anne, “I should have a great cabinet of playthings and curiosities, twice as big as your treasury.”
“How should you get them?” asked Lucy.
“O, I know of a way;—but it is a secret.”
“Tell me, do, Miss Anne,” said Lucy.—“You would buy them, I suppose, with your money.”
“No,” said Miss Anne, “that is not the way I meant.”
“What way did you mean, then?” said Lucy. “I wish you would tell me.”
“Why, I should take such excellent care of everything I had, that my mother would give me a great many of her little curiosities, and other things, to keep.”
“Would she, do you think?”