[CHAPTER I.]
MONDAY MORNING.
"PERCY, Percy!"
"Oh, dear me!" said a pale, thin little girl, all black hair and brown eyes, who was sitting on the door-step, studying with all her might. "I shall miss, I know I shall, and then I shall get marked again!"
"Percy! Perseverance!" called the voice again,—a somewhat high but very pleasant and kindly voice. "Come here, my dear, I want to see you!"
"There now! Aunt Zoe will want me to do some errand or other, I know, and what will become of my lesson!" said Percy, impatiently, closing her book, and rising. "I am sure I wouldn't mind, only for missing!"
She went slowly up-stairs to the room from whence the voice proceeded, and uttered a cry of delight, as she beheld Aunt Zoe holding up a large folio like a scrapbook, which she seemed to have just taken from the depths of a great chest she was rummaging.
"Mother's book of drawings! Oh, how glad I am! I felt sure I never should see them again!"
"Well, you were worrying for nothing, you see, child, for here they are all safe and sound. I thought all the time they would turn up; and this morning I happened to think I had never taken the things out of this chest. So I went to work at it, and here is the book all right. What are you doing?"
"Learning my geography, aunt."