“But dear me,” observed Aunt Laura, “why doesn’t somebody teach her? I wound up the walking-doll for her myself——”
Miss Cicely smiled. “I do not mean that,” she replied. “You couldn’t teach her and I couldn’t, because—we’ve forgotten how. The only one who could teach her would be a little girl of about her own age; a playmate. Believe me, the best present we could give Priscilla would be a companion; a flesh-and-blood little girl who could share her pretty things, and who would teach her how to enjoy them.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed Aunt Laura. “What a very curious creature you are, Cicely. Give Priscilla a present of a ‘flesh-and-blood little girl!’ ‘A playmate of about her own age!’ Fancy!”
“I know you all think I am too young to know anything about bringing up children,” continued Miss Cissy, “and you all, being older, are very much wiser than I am. But I remember when I was a little girl——”
“Stop right there, Cicely,” interrupted Uncle Arthur. “No one in this family but your Aunt Laura has any right to remember when she was a little girl.”
Pretty Cicely pretended to frown at him, but her merry eyes laughed in spite of themselves, though she went on at once: “I was the only child in the family then, just as Priscilla is now, and it was a very lonesome position, I assure you, so I can sympathize with her. I used to long and long for the chance to romp and play with other children of my own age, but I was always surrounded by a lot of servants whose business it was to see that I was very sedate and proper and who were made to feel that I was altogether too important and elegant a little personage to be allowed to associate with the rest of the world. So I saw from afar other children having jolly times and I had to be contented, myself, with my fine playthings and splendid clothes. They did not at all content me. I knew then, just as Priscilla does now, that such things cannot make one happy. Children are like grown-up people in this: that they are never really healthy or happy until they share their good things with some one else.”
“Hear! Hear!” cried Uncle Arthur, clapping his hands approvingly.
Cicely’s whole face was aglow with earnestness and hope as she concluded: “There! now, I have had my say and I am sorry it has been such a long one, but I simply had to speak out, you know.”
“But think of the chances there are of Priscilla’s catching chicken-pox and measles and influenza, if she plays with other children,” suggested Aunt Louise anxiously.
“Children nowadays are so shamefully ill-behaved. They are regular little ruffians. Fancy how wretched it would be if Priscilla caught their horrid habits and became pert and forward and unmannerly,” added Aunt Laura.