I knew quite well. It was behind a very old portmanteau, and a tin box with a wig and moths in it, and the bottom part of the shower-bath, just at the corner, which Margery and I call Bass's Straits. So I made a Voyage of Discovery, and brought it out, "thick with dust," as Jael had said.
And Jael took it, and went away very cross and very ogre-footed, with her cap still awry; and as she stumped down the attic-stairs, and kept clattering the Rushlight against the rails, I could hear her muttering—"A sinful waste of candle-grease—whims and fancies—scandilus!"
CHAPTER III.
PAIN PAST. A REPRIEVE FROM THE BARBER. SUNFLOWER SLEEP. LITTLE MICHAELMAS GOOSE. SNUFFING A RUSHLIGHT. A PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES. GRANDMAMMA WITH A WATCHMAN'S RATTLE.
Jael's ogre-footsteps had hardly ceased to resound from the wooden stairs, when these shook again to the tread of Dr. Brown.
He said—"How are you??" and I said—"Very happy, thank you," which was true. For the only nice thing about dreadful pain is that, when it is gone, you feel for a little bit as if you could cry with joy at having nothing to bear.
Then I thanked him for asking Grandmamma to let me have the Rushlight till Margery came home; and he said I ought to be very much obliged to him, for he had begged me off the barber too. So I asked him if he thought my hair gave me headaches, and he felt it, and said—"No!" which I was very glad of. He said he thought it was more what I grew inside, than what I grew outside my head that did it, and that I was not to puzzle too much over books.
I was afraid he meant the Puzzling Tale, so I told him it was very short, and the answer was given; so he said he should like to hear it—and I read it to him. He liked it very much, and he liked the picture; and I told him we thought they were Sunflowers, only that the glory-leaves were folded in so oddly, and we did not know why. And he said—"Why, because they're asleep, to be sure. Don't you know that flowers sleep as soundly as you do? They don't lie awake in the dark!"
And then he shook with laughing, till he shook the red into his face, and the tears into his eyes, as he always does.