“Oh, Daisy! Daisy!” I sang. “Daisy! Daisy! Daisy—y—y!”
Billie dropped her doll and stared at me. Now she believed that canaries can talk. Presently she barked warningly. Nella was running out of the house.
“Take care, take care,” she called; “Nella will hurt your Daisy.”
I was in despair. I clung to the top of the cage as Mrs. Martin carried it in the house and gave my fright cry, “Mary, Mary, I’m scary, scary,” and our Mary at once came hurrying downstairs.
“Mother,” she said, “there’s something the matter with Dicky-Dick. I wonder whether he got a shock when the squirrel pulled his tail out?”
Mrs. Martin had put Daisy’s cage on a table in the library which was close to the front door, and they gazed first at me as I sat crying on the top of it, and then at Billie, who was laying her doll at Nella’s feet.
Nella took it up, looked it over, then gave it a toss in the corner.
Billie gazed despairingly at her. Nella would rather play with dogs than dolls.
“There’s something the matter with Billie, too,” said Mrs. Martin. “I suppose of course
it’s the monkey. Billie, dear, you don’t like Nella.”