At length, the upper drawer is in order. The child stands and gazes into it with pride.
"It looks just like Emily's," she murmurs. "Now, if I can only keep it so; but it is so hard when I am in a hurry, to stop and put back the things. I'll lock it till Emily comes. I'll ask her to bring grandma in here. Oh, what a nice grandma she is! What good stories she tells. Oh, here is the Chinese puzzle, Uncle George gave me!"
On the floor, she drops to put together the pieces of the game. Five, ten, fifteen minutes fly quickly away; but she is so absorbed in making squares and oblongs and parallelograms out of the smooth, ivory pieces, that she knows nothing about the time.
"Are you ready for me?" asks Hannah, coming in with a broom and dust pan. "Why, Milly, what are you doing?"
"I'm sorry, Hannah." The child's tone was humble, and her countenance expressed such real regret that the girl could not scold, as at first she felt inclined to do.
"I've done one drawer, and it looks real nice; but then I found my puzzle, and I forgot. I'll fix the rest just as quick as I can."
"Well," said Hannah, "you ought not to have stopped to play till your work was done; but it can't be helped now. You just bring me all the under clothes, and I'll fold them for you. Seems to me I wouldn't toss everything about so again."
"No, I never shall. I'm beginning to be neat, now. Grandma has been telling us a story about it. You know the Hindoos and the Indians, and everybody who don't have the Bible, are filthy. The Bible says so," she added, earnestly, seeing Hannah smile. "And just as soon as they begin to be good, they clean their houses and wash themselves, and make their hair smooth. I knew a girl who did so in Calcutta. Her name was Waroo. She used to worship an idol. It was a little brass thing. She kept it hung on the wall. After she learned of the missionaries about God, she threw away her idol; and then she began to look real nice. Her sarree was clean; and her face washed. Papa asked her what had come over her, and she said 'I'm trying to be like the missionaries and worship their God.'"
[CHAPTER XI.]
A DRIVE TO THE BEACH.