“Yes. You are going to stay with her in her grand big house, away from poor Muzzy”—replied the ‘poor Muzzy’ in question, taking a large mouthful of bread-and-butter and swallowing it down with a gulp of tea. “And I hope you’ll be a good boy.”
“’Ope me be a goo’ boy!” he echoed thoughtfully. “’Ess! Me tell Dads?”
Miss Letitia looked startled,—Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir smiled.
“No. You had better not tell Dads. He is ill, you know. When you come back he will be quite well.”
“Sink so?” queried Boy dubiously.
“Think so? Of course I think so. Now don’t stand staring there. Here’s your picture-book,—look at that till Gerty brings you your hat and coat.”
Boy took the interesting volume offered him, docilely, but without enthusiasm. He knew it well. Its torn covers,—the impossible beasts and birds depicted within it,—the extraordinary jumble of rhymes which Gerty would read to him at odd moments, and which he would afterwards think about in pained silence,—all these things worried him. There was a large and elaborately ornamented B in the book, and—twisted in and out its curly formation—were two designs which were utterly opposed to each other,—a cricket-bat and a bumble-bee. The ‘poetry’ accompanying it said—
Fetch me the BAT
To kill the RAT.
After this ferocious couplet came the flamboyant coloured drawing of a large yellow flower, unlike any flower ever born in any field of the wide world. The yellow flower being duly considered as a growth of distinct individuality, other two lines appeared—
Look here and see
The BUMBLE-BEE.