"Very well, then, once upon a time I dreamed a dream—"
"It's Joseph and his broders papa is going to tell us about," cried little Dick. "Oh, I like that."
Every one laughed, while Robert explained that this was papa's dream, not Joseph's; which set the little fellow's mind wandering away still more into the favourite narrative, and it was only after a whispered threat from Robert that he would be taken up to the nursery if he did not sit quiet and listen, that he consented to leave Joseph and his brethren alone for the present.
"It's no use," said Mr. Lincoln, laughing, "somehow the dream has fled. I'll tell you what we shall do,—we shall ask mamma to tell one of her stories about when she was a little girl."
"I should like to have heard the dream, papa," said Lily, "but if it has fled away it won't be brought back. I know I never can get mine to do it till perhaps just when I am not thinking about it, then there, it is quite distinctly."
"Well, that will be the way mine may do," said Mr. Lincoln. "Come, mamma, we are waiting for yours. A good story-teller should begin without delay, and we all know what a capital one you are."
"Very well, then," said Mrs. Lincoln. "You must know that when I was a little girl I had been ill, and your grandmamma sent me to live with her brother, my Uncle John, who was the rector of the neighbouring parish. Uncle John had no children, and his wife had died just a few weeks before I went to pay him this visit. He had been very fond of my aunt, and he was still very sad about her death; so that it would have been rather a dull life but for Dolly, the housekeeper. Every morning after breakfast Dolly had to go for potatoes to a small field at a little distance from the rectory, and she usually took me with her if the day was fine. I ran about so much chasing butterflies and birds, that when the basket was filled I was quite tired out, and very glad to be placed upon the wheel-barrow and be taken home in this manner by the good-natured Dolly.
"And had you no little girl to play with, mamma?" asked Robert.
COMING FROM THE POTATO-FIELD.