And I looked up at her. Sure enough, she did look like my godmother, only a little more ugly and a good deal more kind!
"As you have been a good girl this morning, and finished your knitting and sewing, I am going to give you something that will amuse you. I am going to gift you with the knowledge of animal language. Look at your cat and dog on the hearth! They are telling each other stories. Would you like to listen to what they are saying?"
"Oh, that I should!" I exclaimed.
She touched me on the lips with her crooked staff, and suddenly I heard two little voices gossiping round the fire. I glanced round at my fairy godmother, but she had vanished. I had not time to think how wonderful it all was—I was too much taken up with what I heard. There sat my precious Miss Perkie, with King Charlie at her side, so interested that his little pink tongue had pushed its way out through his teeth.
KING CHARLIE.
I drew my chair nearer to the hearth, so that I might hear their conversation the better. But Charlie turned round upon me rather angrily, and said:
"If you want to listen, Nelly, don't make such a noise with your stool. It disturbs me, and it is really provoking to lose the thread of an adventure in that way. Pray begin the story again, Perkie."
He always was rather a sharp-tempered dog, so I did not answer him. Yet the rude way in which he addressed me struck me as rather funny. I remember thinking that, perhaps, if all the world spoke dog-language, dogs would be the masters, and we human beings the slaves.