Out we all got from the tent; my mamma in her night-gown and shawl, with a bit of flannel round her throat, and list shoes, and I walking between the two little girls, each holding me by the hand. But we had hardly walked twice round the room, talking like ladies who are out in the park, when suddenly we heard Aunt Sharpshins coming upstairs! In a moment we were all upon the bed—down came the tent—underneath the bed it was thrown—into the bed we all three got as quickly as possible—and when Mrs. Sharpshins came into the room we all seemed fast asleep!
She stood at the foot of the bed, looking at us. After a minute or two she went down again.
‘How you laughed and shook the bed,’ said my mamma to Nanny. ‘I thought she would have found us out, and somehow I wished she had. I don’t like to have pretended to be asleep.’
‘But,’ answered Nanny, ‘she would have been so unkind if she had seen us walking in the park.’
‘I wish people would not be unkind,’ sighed my mamma; and then she added, ‘How dear and kind you are, Nanny; and how you have worked for me, and nursed me all these two days.’
At this they threw their arms round each other’s necks, and so we all three went to sleep in reality, quite forgetting the tent which had been thrown under the bed. But it was a good-natured, merry girl that it belonged to, and she only gave my mamma and Nanny a good tickling when she found it, after a long search, at bedtime.
CHAPTER VI
THE LITTLE LADY
My mamma got quite well as soon as my frock and trousers were finished; and whenever she was allowed to go out with her aunt she took me with her. The girl whose sheet had been taken for the tent had made me a scarf of violet-colored satin, and a white silk bonnet, and these I always had on when we went out.
In a few weeks, however, I was destined to lose this kind mamma, and become the dear doll of another. If I could have foreseen that this would happen I should have fretted very much, because I was so fond of Ellen Plummy.