“It’s holidays, mother, it’s holidays,” cried Olly. “I don’t like lessons—not a bit.”
“Well, but, Olly, think a bit; you can’t spin your top and look at picture-books all day, and I’m afraid it’s going to rain all day—it looks very like it. If you come and do some reading and counting with me this morning, I can give you some spills to make, or some letters to tear up for me afterwards. That will save the toys for this afternoon; and some time this afternoon, if it doesn’t stop raining, we’ll all have a romp. And as for you, Milly, don’t you think it’s quite time Katie had a new frock? I believe I can find a beautiful bit of blue silk in my bag, and I’m sure nurse will show you how to make it.”
Milly’s face brightened up very much at this, and the two children went skipping upstairs to the drawing-room after their mother, in very fair spirits again. Olly did some reading, while Milly wrote in her copybook, and then Olly had his counting-slate and tried to find out what 6 and 4 made, and 5 and 3, and other little sums of the same kind. He yawned a good deal over his reading, and was quite sure several times that h-a-y spelt “ham,” and s-a-w spelt “was,” but still, on the whole, he got through very well. Milly wrote her copy, then she learnt some verses of a poem called “Lucy Gray,” and last of all mother found her a big map of Westmoreland, the county in which the mountains are, and they had a most delightful geography lesson. Mother pretended to take Milly a drive all about the mountains, and made her find out their names, and the names of the towns and the lakes, beginning with Lake Windermere. Olly was interested too, for Mrs. Norton told them a great many things about the places, and made quite a story out of it.
“He was quite sure that h-a-y spelt ‘ham’ and s-a-w spelt ‘was.’”
“Why, mother, I never could go all that long way all at once—really, could I?” asked Milly, when they had been all round the mountains, in and out and round about.
“No, Milly, not quite,” said Mrs. Norton, laughing, “but it’s very easy to go a long way in a pretendy drive. It would only take us about ten minutes that way to get to the other side of the world.”
“How long would it take really?” asked Olly.
“About three months.”
“If we could fly up, and up, ever so far,” said Olly, standing on tiptoe, and stretching out his little arms as high as they would reach, “it wouldn’t take us long. Mother, don’t you wish you was a bird?”