It is one of the most delightful days that ever was. September, and almost too warm, if it were not for the breeze that brings cooler air from the sea. Once in a while some fruit falls from the heavily-laden trees, and the first dead leaves rustle a little on the ground. The bees are busy, making the most of the bright day; for they know of the stormy weather coming. The sky is very blue, and the flowers very bright. Two swallows are playing hide-and-seek through the orchard, and chasing each other in great races, now so close to the ground that it seems as if their feet might catch in the green grass, and now away up in the air over the high walls out towards the hills; and just as one loses sight of them, and turns away, here they are again. And in the kitchen the girls are clattering the dishes and laughing; and do you hear some one singing a doleful tune in a cheery, happy voice?
That is Dorothy, Polly’s dear Dorothy, who waits upon grandmother, with whom she has been to France, and Holland, and Scotland, and who can tell almost as charming stories as grandmother herself.
The house is large and old, with queer-shaped windows, all sizes and all heights from the ground, and a great many of them hidden by the ivy. That is the outside; and if you were to go in, you would find large, low rooms, filled with furniture that you would think queer and uncomfortable. And there are portraits in some of them, one of Polly, probably painted not very long before, in which she is attired after the fashion of those days, and looks nearly as old as she would now if she were living!
Now let us go back to the garden. The kitten has escaped, and Polly is wishing for something to do.
“Where’s Dolly?” says grandmother. “Find her, and then gather some apples and plums, and have a tea drinking.”
The doll had been very ill all day; it was strange in grandmother to forget it. She had fallen asleep just before dinner, and been put carefully in her bed; it would never do to wake her so soon. And besides, a tea party was not amusing when there was no one to sit at the other end of the table. This referred to Tom, Polly’s dearest cousin, who had just left her after a long visit; and she missed him sadly.
“And,” says Polly, “I do not think I should care for it if he were here, if I could have nothing but apples. I’m tired of them. I have eaten one of every kind in the garden to-day, even the great yellow ones by the lower gate. I think they’re disagreeable; but I left them till the very last, and then I was afraid they would feel sorry to be left out. I think I will eat another, though; and I will not have a party—it’s a trouble. Which kind would you take, grandmother?”
“One of the very smallest,” says the old lady, laughing; “but stop a moment. I have one I’ll give you;” and she took a beauty from her pocket, and threw it on the grass by Polly.
“That’s the very prettiest apple I ever saw,” says the child. “Where did you get it? Not off our trees. ‘Father gave it to you?’ and where did he find it?”
Grandmother did not know.