A lady came every morning to teach Fanny, but Mrs Leslie had begged that she might have a holiday in consequence of her papa’s and mamma’s arrival, and that she might have more time to play with her little brother.
Fanny had been anxiously considering how she could best amuse him.
“What should you like to do, Norman?” she asked, putting her arm affectionately round his neck. “You see I am a girl, and perhaps I may like many things that you will not care about. Let me consider. We can arrange my doll’s house, or we can play at paying visits; and I have two battledores and a shuttlecock, which I will teach you how to use; and then you must come out and help me to feed my chickens. I have also a garden of my own, and I am sure granny will let you have a piece of ground near it, or else you shall have part of mine, and you can learn how to keep it neat and pretty. And whenever you like you can have a game at romps with Trusty. You must make friends with him to-day; and if you call him by his name and give him a piece of meat, which I will get from the cook for you, and pat his head, he will soon learn to know you. But you must not frighten him with your whip, or he will run away from you. He used to be beaten when he was naughty, but then he was a little puppy, and did not know better; but now he never does anything wrong, and if he was ever so hungry, and was told to guard the things in the larder, or on the dining-room table, from the cat, he would not touch the nicest dish himself, and would take care that neither the cat nor any other dog came near them.”
“I do not care about any of the things you speak of,” answered Norman. “I want my whip, and I think Susan has hid it for fear I should beat her, and I intend to do so if she dares to treat me like a baby. I will beat Trusty too, if he barks at me—you’ll see if I don’t—and he will soon find out who is master. I am a brave boy, papa says so, and I want to be a man as soon as I can.”
“But brave and good boys do not beat either women or dogs, and I hope you wish to be good as well as brave,” said Fanny gently.
“So I am, when I have my own way,” exclaimed Norman, “and my own way I intend to have that I can tell you. Now, Fanny, go and find my whip, or make Susan give it to you if she has got it, and if she will not, tell her that my papa will make her when he comes home.”
Fanny, wishing to please her brother, and not believing that he would really make a bad use of his whip, hunted about for it, but in vain. She then went and asked Susan if she had got it.
Susan replied that she knew nothing about the whip, and had last seen it by the side of the young gentleman when he had fallen asleep in the arm-chair.
On hearing this, Norman marched into the drawing-room, expecting to find his whip in the place where he was supposed to have left it, but it was not there. He searched about in all directions, as Fanny had done in vain. He saw his grandmamma following him with her eyes, but he could not bring himself to ask her if she knew where his whip was, and she did not speak to him. At last, losing patience, he ran out of the room, and joined Fanny in the garden.
“Somebody has my whip, and I will find out who it is,” he muttered angrily, “I am not going to have my things taken away. But I say, Fanny, cannot you come out with me and buy another, I must have one just like the last, and I will try it on Trusty’s back if he comes barking at me again.”