"Of all the things I had thought of, it never came into my head to expect a new baby-sister; but so it was. When I entered the parlour, and was rushing up to fling myself into my mother's arms, what was my surprise to find a lovely baby—the very thing I had been wishing for—yes, actually a baby-sister.
MY BABY-SISTER.
"I don't think I was ever so happy in my life as at that moment, when I was allowed to take the baby in my lap and examine her tiny fingers and toes; and when she smiled in my face, and seemed to be pleased with her big sister, I actually cried, I was so happy. While I was sitting holding baby in this way, my father returned home with Willie, my brother, and such fun and laughing we had, to be sure! But I must own I did feel a little vexed when papa one day said to me, a few weeks after I had returned home, 'Well, Lily, now that you have got such a fat baby sister to carry about, you will have to lay aside your dolls.'
"I was very sorry, for I loved my dolls exceedingly; they had been my dear companions and friends for so long. But I knew papa scarcely approved of me playing so much with them, and fancied I might be more usefully employed. I took out my last new doll, Eva, for a walk that afternoon, feeling somehow that she must be laid away in a drawer till baby grew up, when she should have her to be her faithful companion. Stepping out at the side gate into the lane to look for Willie, who had gone to the post, I found an old woman sitting down to rest. After speaking to her for a minute or two, I discovered, to my great delight, that she was the mother of Will Dampier, and the grandmother of Polly. She had just come from the Bluff Crag that very day, where she had been to see her son; and she told me that the last thing she saw, in looking back from the bank above, before turning into the main road, was her son with his crab-basket on his back, and Master Patrick Berkley alongside of him.
"'Oh, I am so glad to hear this,' I replied; 'that shows Patrick's leg must be quite well and strong again. And how are Miss Vea and Alfred? did you see them also?"
MEETING POLLY'S GRANDMOTHER.
"'No, miss,' said the old woman, 'I didn't see them. The young lady and her brother have gone to stay with another aunt at some distance off; but Master Patrick is to remain with Mrs. Berkley all the winter. I'm sure there's more than my son and Polly were glad indeed to hear this, for he is a good friend to the poor, and does many a good action to help them when he thinks as they are frail.'