LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY

Works of
Miss Mulock

Little Sunshine’s Holiday
The Little Lame Prince
Adventures of a Brownie
His Little Mother
John Halifax, Gentleman

L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY

(Incorporated)

212 Summer St., Boston, Mass.

The German pictures.
(See page [139].)

LITTLE SUNSHINE’S
HOLIDAY

A PICTURE FROM LIFE

BY
MISS MULOCK
Illustrated by
ETHELDRED B. BARRY

BOSTON
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
1900

Copyright, 1900
By L. C. Page and Company
(INCORPORATED)
All rights reserved
Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, Mass., U. S. A.

DEDICATED TO
Little Sunshine’s Little Friends

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY.

CHAPTER I.

While writing this title, I paused, considering whether the little girl to whom it refers would not say of it, as she sometimes does of other things, “You make a mistake.” For she is such a very accurate little person. She cannot bear the slightest alteration of a fact. In herself and in other people she must have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. For instance, one day, overhearing her mamma say, “I had my shawl with me,” she whispered, “No, mamma, not your shawl; it was your waterproof.”

Therefore, I am sure she would wish me to explain at once that “Little Sunshine” is not her real name, but a pet name, given because she is such a sunshiny child; and that her “holiday” was not so much hers—seeing she was then not three years old, and every day was a holiday—as her papa’s and mamma’s, who are very busy people, and who took her with them on one of their rare absences from home. They felt they could not do without her merry laugh, her little pattering feet, and her pretty curls,—even for a month. And so she got a “holiday” too, though it was quite unearned: as she has never been to school, and her education has gone no farther than a crooked S, a round O, an M for mamma, and a D for—but this is telling.

Of course Little Sunshine has a Christian name and surname, like other little girls, but I do not choose to give them. She has neither brother nor sister, and says “she doesn’t want any,—she had rather play with papa and mamma.” She is not exactly a pretty child, but she has very pretty yellow curls, and is rather proud of “my curls.” She has only lately begun to say “I” and “my,” generally speaking of herself, baby-fashion, in the third person,—as “Sunny likes that,” “Sunny did so-and-so,” etc. She always tells everything she has done, and everything she is going to do. If she has come to any trouble—broken a teacup, for instance—and her mamma says, “Oh, I am so sorry! Who did that?” Little Sunshine will creep up, hanging her head and blushing, “Sunny did it; she won’t ever do it again.” But the idea of denying it would never come into her little head. Everybody has always told the exact truth to her, and so she tells the truth to everybody, and has no notion of there being such a thing as falsehood in the world.

Still, this little girl is not a perfect character. She sometimes flies into a passion, and says, “I won’t,” in a very silly way,—it is always so silly to be naughty. And sometimes she feels thoroughly naughty,—as we all do occasionally,—and then she says, of her own accord, “Mamma, Sunny had better go into the cupboard” (her mamma’s dressing-closet). There she stays, with the door close shut, for a little while; and then comes out again smiling, “Sunny is quite good now.” She kisses mamma, and is all right. This is the only punishment she has ever had—or needed, for she never sulks, or does anything underhand or mean or mischievous; and her wildest storm of passion only lasts a few minutes. To see mamma looking sad and grave, or hear her say, “I am so sorry that my little girl is naughty,” will make the child good again immediately.

So you have a faint idea of the little person who was to be taken on this long holiday; first in a “puff-puff,” then in a boat,—which was to her a most remarkable thing, as she lives in a riverless county, and, except once crossing the Thames, had scarcely ever beheld water. Her mamma had told her, however, of all the wonderful things she was to see on her holiday, and for a week or two past she had been saying to every visitor that came to the house, “Sunny is going to Scotland. Sunny is going in a puff-puff to Scotland. And papa will take her in a boat, and she will catch a big salmon. Would you like to see Sunny catch a big salmon?” For it is the little girl’s firm conviction that to see Sunny doing anything must be the greatest possible pleasure to those about her,—as perhaps it is.

Well, the important day arrived. Her mamma was very busy, Little Sunshine helping her,—to “help mamma” being always her grand idea. The amount of work she did, in carrying her mamma’s clothes from the drawers to the portmanteau, and carrying them back again; watching her dresses being folded and laid in the trunk, then jumping in after them, smoothing and patting them down, and, lastly, sitting upon them, cannot be told. Every now and then she looked up, “Mamma, isn’t Sunny a busy girl?”—which could not be denied.

Sunshine says good-bye to the gardener & his wife.

The packing-up was such a great amusement—to herself, at least—that it was with difficulty she could be torn from it, even to get her dinner, and be dressed for her journey, part of which was to take place that day. At last she was got ready, a good while before anybody else, and then she stood and looked at herself from head to foot in a large mirror, and was very much interested in the sight. Her travelling-dress was a gray waterproof cloak, with a hood and pockets, where she could carry all sorts of things,—her gloves, a biscuit, the head of her dolly (its body had come off), and two or three pebbles, which she daily picked up in the garden, and kept to wash in her bath night and morning, “to make them clean,” for she has an extraordinary delight in things being “quite clean.” She had on a pair of new boots,—buttoned boots, the first she ever had,—and she was exceedingly proud of them, as well as of her gray felt hat, underneath which was the usual mass of curly yellow hair. She shook it from side to side like a little lion’s mane, calling out, “Mamma, look at Sunny’s curls! Such a lot of curls!”

When the carriage came to the door, she watched the luggage being put in very gravely. Then all the servants came to say good-bye to her. They were very kind servants, and very fond of Little Sunshine. Even the gardener and his wife looked quite sorry to part with her, but in her excitement and delight the little lady of course did not mind it at all.

“Good-bye! good-bye! I’m going to Scotland,” she kept saying, and kissing her hand. “Sunny’s going to Scotland in a puff-puff. But she’ll come back again, she will.”

After which kind promise, meant to cheer them up a little, she insisted on jumping into the carriage “all by her own self,”—she dearly likes doing anything “all my own self,”—and, kissing her hand once more, was driven away with her mamma and her nurse (whose name is Lizzie) to meet her papa in London.

Having been several times in a “puff-puff,” and once in London, she was not a bit frightened at the streets or the crowd. Only in the confusion at Euston Square she held very tight to her mamma’s hand, and at last whispered, “Mamma, take her! up in you arms, up in you own arms!”—her phrase when she was almost a baby. And though she is now a big girl, who can walk, and even run, she clung tightly to her mamma’s neck, and would not be set down again until transferred to her papa, and taken by him to look at the engine.

Papa and his little girl are both very fond of engines. This was such a large one, newly painted, with its metal-work so clean and shiny, that it was quite a picture. Though sometimes it gave a snort and a puff like a live creature, Sunny was not afraid of it, but sat in her papa’s arms watching it, and then walked gravely up and down with him, holding his hand and making all sorts of remarks on the things she saw, which amused him exceedingly. She also informed him of what she was going to do,—how she should jump into the puff-puff, and then jump out again, and sleep in a cottage, in a quite new bed, where Sunny had never slept before. She chattered so fast, and was so delighted at everything about her, that the time went rapidly by; and her papa, who could not come to Scotland for a week yet, was obliged to leave her. When he kissed her, poor Little Sunshine set up a great cry.

“I don’t want you to go away. Papa! papa!” Then, bursting into one of her pathetic little furies, “I won’t let papa go away! I won’t!”

She clung to him so desperately that her little arms had fairly to be untied from round his neck, and it was at least two minutes and a half before she could be comforted.

But when the train began to move, and the carriageful of people to settle down for the journey, Sunny recovered herself, and grew interested in watching them. They were all gentlemen, and as each came in, mamma had suggested that if he objected to a child, he had better choose another carriage; but nobody did. One—who looked like the father of a family—said: “Ma’am, he must be a very selfish kind of man who does object to children,—that is, good children.” So mamma earnestly hoped that hers would be a good child.

So she was,—for a long time. There were such interesting things to see out of the window: puff-puffs without end, some moving on the rails, some standing still,—some with a long train behind them, some without. What perplexed and troubled Little Sunshine most was to see the men who kept running across the rails and ducking under the engines. She got quite excited about them.

“That poor man must not go on the rails, else the puff-puff will run over him and hurt him. Then Sunny must pick him up, and take him to her nursery, and cuddle him.” (She always wants to cuddle everybody who is ill or hurt.) “Mamma, tell that poor man he mustn’t go on the rails.”

And even when mamma explained that the man knew what he was about, and was not likely to let himself be run over by any puff-puff, the little girl still looked anxious and unhappy, until the train swept right away into the open country, with fields and trees, and cows and baa-lambs. These last delighted her much. She kept nodding her head and counting them. “There’s papa baa-lambs, and mamma baa-lambs, and little baby baa-lambs, just like little Sunny; and they all run about together; and they are so happy.”

Everything, indeed, looked as happy as the lambs and the child. It was a bright September day, the trees just beginning to change colour, and the rich midland counties of England—full of farms and pasture-lands, with low hills sloping up to the horizon—looked specially beautiful. But the people in the carriage did not seem to notice anything. They were all gentlemen, as I said, and they had all got their afternoon papers, and were reading hard. Not much wonder, as the newspapers were terribly interesting that day,—the day after the capitulation of Sedan, when the Emperor Louis Napoleon surrendered himself and his army to King William of Prussia. When Little Sunshine has grown a woman, she will understand all about it. But now she only sat looking at the baa-lambs out of the window, and now and then pulling, rather crossly, at the newspaper in her mamma’s hand. “I don’t want you to read!” In her day, may there never be read such dreadful things as her mamma read in those newspapers!

The gentlemen at last put down theirs, and began to talk together, loudly and fast. Sunshine’s mamma listened, now to them, now to her little girl, who asked all sorts of questions, as usual. “What’s that? you tell me about that,” she is always saying, as she twists her fingers tight in those of her mamma, who answers at once, and exactly, so far as she knows. When she does not know,—and even mammas cannot be expected to understand everything,—she says, plainly, “My little girl, I don’t know.” And her little girl always believes her, and is satisfied.

Sunshine was growing rather tired now; and the gentlemen kept on talking, and did not take any notice of her, or attempt to amuse her, as strangers generally do, she being such a lively and easily amused child. Her mamma, fearful of her restlessness, struck out a brilliant idea.

Little Sunshine has a cousin Georgy, whom she is very fond of, and who a few days before had presented her with some pears. These pears had but one fault,—they could not be eaten, being as hard as bullets, and as sour as crabs. They tried the little girl’s patience exceedingly, but she was very good. She went every morning to look at them as they stood ranged in a row along mamma’s window-sill, and kissed them one by one to make them ripe. At last they did ripen, and were gradually eaten,—except one, the biggest and most beautiful of all. “Suppose,” mamma suggested, “that we keep it two days more, then it will be quite ripe; mamma will put it in her pocket, and we will eat it in the train half-way to Scotland.” Little Sunshine looked disappointed, but she did not cry, nor worry mamma,—who, she knows, never changes her mind when once she says No,—and presently forgot all about it. Until, lo! just as the poor little girl was getting dull and tired, with nothing to do, and nobody to play with, mamma pulled out of her pocket—the identical pear! Such a pear! so large and so pretty,—almost too pretty to eat. The child screamed with delight, and immediately began to make public her felicity.

“That’s mamma’s pear!” said she, touching the coat-sleeve of the old gentleman next her,—a very grim old gentlemen,—an American, thin and gaunt, with a face not unlike the wolf in Little Red Ridinghood. “That’s mamma’s pear. Mamma ’membered (remembered) to bring Sunny that pear!”

“Eh?” said the old gentleman, shaking the little fingers off, not exactly in unkindness, but as if it were a fly that had settled on him and fidgeted him. But Sunny, quite unaccustomed to be shaken off, immediately drew back, shyly and half offended, and did not look at him again.

He went on talking, in a cross and “cantankerous” way, to another gentlemen, with a gray beard,—an Indian officer, just come from Cashmere, which he declared to be the finest country in the world; while the American said angrily “that it was nothing like Virginia.” But as neither had been in the other country, they were about as able to judge the matter as most people are when they dispute about a thing. Nevertheless, they discussed the question so violently, that Little Sunshine, who is not used to quarrelling, or seeing people quarrel, opened her blue eyes wide with astonishment.

Fortunately, she was engrossed by her pear, which took a long time to eat. First, it had to be pared,—in long parings, which twisted and dangled like Sunshine’s curls. Then these parings had to be thrown out of the window to the little birds, which were seen sitting here and there on the telegraph wires. Lastly, the pear had to be eaten slowly and deliberately. She fed mamma, herself, and Lizzie, too, turn and turn about, in the most conscientious way; uttering at each mouthful that ringing laugh which I wish I could put into paper and print; but I can’t. By the time all was done, Sunshine had grown sleepy. She cuddled down in her mamma’s arms, with a whispered request for “Maymie’s apron.”

Now here a confession must be made. The one consolation of life to this little person is the flannel apron upon which her first nurse used to wash her when she was a baby. She takes the two corners of it to stroke her face with one hand, while she sucks the thumb of the other,—and so she lies, meditating with open eyes, till at last she goes to sleep. She is never allowed to have the apron in public, so to-day her mamma was obliged to invent a little “Maymie’s apron”—a small square of flannel—to comfort her on the long railway journey. This being produced, though she was a little ashamed, and blushed in her pretty childish way, she turned her back on the gentlemen in the carriage and settled down in deep content, her eyes fixed on mamma’s face. Gradually they closed—and the lively little woman lay fast asleep, warm and heavy, in her mamma’s arms.

There she might have slept till the journey’s end, but for those horrid gentlemen, who began to quarrel so fiercely about French and Prussians, and which had the right of it in this terrible war,—a question which you little folks even when you are great big folks fifty years hence may hardly be able to decide,—that they disturbed the poor child in her happy sleep, and at last she started up, looking round her with frightened eyes, and began to scream violently. She had been so good all the way, so little trouble to anybody, that mamma could not help thinking it served the gentlemen right, and told them, severely, that “if gentlemen did differ, they need not do it so angrily as to waken a child.” At which they all looked rather ashamed, and were quiet for the rest of the journey.

It did not last much longer; and again the little girl had the fun of jumping out of a puff-puff and into a carriage. The bright day closed; it was already dusk, and pouring rain, and they had to drive a long way, stop at several places, and see several new people whom Little Sunshine had never seen before. She was getting tired and hungry, but still kept good and did not cry; and when at last she came to the cottage which her mamma had told her about, where lived an old gentleman and lady who had been very kind to mamma, and dear grandmamma, too, for many years, and would be very kind to the little girl, Sunny ran in at once, as merry as possible.

After awhile mamma followed, and lo! there was Little Sunshine, quite at home already, sitting in the middle of the white sheep-skin hearth-rug, having taken half her “things” off, chattering in the most friendly manner, and asking to be lifted up to see “a dear little baby and a mamma,” which was a portrait of the old lady’s eldest sister as an infant in her mother’s arms, about seventy years ago.

And what do you think happened next? Sunny actually sat up to supper, which she had never done in all her life before,—supper by candle-light: a mouthful of fowl, and a good many mouthfuls of delicious cream, poured, with a tiny bit of jam in the middle of it, into her saucer. And she made a large piece of dry toast into “fishes,” and swam them in her mamma’s tea, and then fished them out with a teaspoon, and ate them up. Altogether it was a wonderful meal and left her almost too wide awake to go to bed, if she had not had the delight of sleeping in her mamma’s room instead of a nursery, and being bathed, instead of in her own proper bath, in a washing-tub!

This washing-tub was charming. She eyed it doubtfully, she walked around it, she peered over it; at last she slowly got into it.

“Come and see me in my bath; come and see Sunny in her bath,” cried she, inviting all the family, half of whom accepted the invitation. Mamma heard such shouts of laughing, with her little girl’s laugh clearer than all, that she was obliged to go up-stairs to see what was the matter. There was Sunshine frolicking about and splashing like a large fish in the tub, the maids and mistresses standing round, exceedingly amused at their new plaything, the little “water baby.”

But at last the day’s excitement was over, and Sunny lay in her white nightgown, cuddled up like a round ball in her mamma’s lap, sucking her Maymie’s apron, and listening to the adventures of Tommy Tinker. Tommy Tinker is a young gentleman about whom a story, “a quite new story, which Sunny never heard before,” has to be told every night. Mamma had done this for two months, till Tommy, his donkey, his father, John Tinker, who went about the country crying “Pots and kettles to mend,” his schoolfellow, Jack, and his playfellow, Mary, were familiar characters, and had gone through so much that mamma was often puzzled as to what should happen to them next; this night especially, when she herself was rather tired, but fortunately the little girl grew sleepy very soon.

So she said her short prayers, ending with “God make Sunny a good little girl” (to which she sometimes deprecatingly adds, “but Sunny is a good girl”), curled down in the beautiful large strange bed,—such a change from her little crib at home,—and was fast asleep in no time.

Thus ended the first day of Little Sunshine’s Holiday.

CHAPTER II.

Next morning Little Sunshine was awake very early, sitting upright in bed, and trying to poke open her mamma’s eyes; then she looked about her in the new room with the greatest curiosity.

“There’s my tub! There’s Sunny’s tub! I want to go into my tub again!” she suddenly cried, with a shout of delight, and insisted on pattering over to it on her bare feet, and swimming all sorts of things in it,—a comb, a brush, biscuits, the soap-dish and soap, and a large penny, which she had found. These kept her amused till she was ready to be dressed, after which she went independently down-stairs, where her mamma found her, as before, sitting on the white rug, and conversing cheerfully with the old gentleman and lady, and the rest of the family.

After breakfast she was taken into the garden. It was a very nice garden, with lots of apple-trees in it, and many apples had fallen to the ground. Sunshine picked them up and brought them in her pinafore, to ask mamma if she might eat them,—for she never eats anything without saying, “May I?” and when it is given to her she always says, “Thank you.”

Then she went back into the garden again, and saw no end of curious things. Everybody was so kind to her, and petted her as if there had never been a child in the house before, which certainly there had not for a great many years. She and her mamma would willingly have stayed ever so much longer in the dear little cottage, but there was another house in Scotland, where were waiting Sunshine’s two aunties; not real aunties, for she has none, nor uncles neither; but she is a child so well loved, that she has heaps of adopted aunts and uncles, too. These,—Auntie Weirie and Auntie Maggie,—with other kind friends, expected her without fail that very night.

So Sunny was obliged to say good-bye, and start again, which she did on her own two little feet, for the fly forgot to come; and her mamma, and her Lizzie, and two more kind people, had to make a rush of more than a mile, or they would have missed the train. If papa, or anybody at home, had seen them,—half walking, and half running, and carrying the little girl by turns, or making her run between them, till she said, mournfully, “Sunny can’t run, Sunny is so tired!”—how sorry they would have been!

And when at the station she lost her mamma, who was busy about luggage, poor Sunny’s troubles seemed great indeed. She screamed until mamma heard her ever so far off, and when she caught sight of her again, she clung around her neck in the most frantic way. “I thought you was lost; I thought you was lost.”

(Sunny’s grammar is not perfect yet. She cannot understand tenses; she says “brang” instead of “brought,” and once being told that this was not right, she altered it to “I brung,” which, indeed, had some sense, for do we not say “I rang,” and “I rung?” Perhaps Little Sunshine will yet write a book on grammar—who knows?)

Well, she parted from her friends, quite cheerfully of course,—she never cries after anybody but her mamma and papa,—and soon made acquaintance with her fellow travellers, who this time were chiefly ladies. It being nearly one o’clock, two of them took a beautiful basket of lunch: sandwiches, and cakes, and grapes. Little Sunshine watched it with grave composure until she saw the grapes, which were very fine. Then she could not help whispering to her mamma, very softly, “Sunny likes grapes.”

“Hush!” said mamma, also in a whisper. “They are not ours, so we can’t have them,”—an answer which always satisfies this little girl. She said no more. But perhaps the young lady who was eating the grapes saw the silent, wistful eyes, for she picked off the most beautiful half of the bunch and handed it over. “Thank you,” said Sunny, in the politest way. “Look, mamma! grapes!—shall I give you one?” And the delight of eating them, and feeding mamma with them, “like a little bird,” altogether comforted her for the troubles with which she began her journey.

Then she grew conversational, and informed everybody that Sunny was going to Scotland, to a place where she had never been before, and that she was to row in a boat and catch big salmon,—which no doubt interested them much. She herself was so interested in everything she saw, that it was impossible not to share her enjoyment. She sat or stood at the carriage window and watched the view. It was quite different from anything she had been used to. Sunny lives in a very pretty but rather level country, full of woods and lanes, and hedges and fields; but she had never seen a hill or a river, or indeed (except the Thames) any sort of water bigger than a horse-pond. Mamma had sometimes shown her pictures of mountains and lakes, but doubted if the child had taken it in, and was therefore quite surprised when she called out, all of a sudden, “There’s a mountain!”

And a mountain it really was,—one of those Westmoreland hills, bleak and bare, which gradually rise up before travellers’ eyes on the North journey, a foretaste of all the beautiful things that are coming. Mamma, delighted, held up her little girl to look at it,—the first mountain Sunny ever saw,—with its long, smooth slopes, and the sheep feeding on them, dotted here and there like white stones, or moving about like walking daisies.

Little Sunshine was greatly charmed with the “baa-lambs.” She had seen plenty this spring,—white baa-lambs and black baa-lambs, and white baa-lambs with black faces,—but never so many at a time. And they skipped about in such a lively way, and stood so funnily in steep places, with their four little legs all screwed up together, looking at the train as it passed, that she grew quite excited, and wanted to jump out and play with them.

To quiet her, mamma told her a story about the mountains, how curious they looked in winter, all covered with snow; and how the lambs were sometimes lost in the snow, and the shepherds went out to find them, and carried them home in their arms, and warmed them by the fireside and fed them, until they opened their eyes, and stretched their little frozen legs, and began to run about the floor.

Little Sunshine listened, with her wide blue eyes fixed on the mountain, and then upon her mamma’s face, never saying a word, till at length she burst out quite breathless, for she does not yet know words enough to get out her thoughts, with:

“I want a little baa-lamb. No,”—she stopped and corrected herself,—“I want two little baa-lambs. I would go and fetch them in out of the snow, and carry them in my little arms, and lay them on Maymie’s apron by my nursery fire, and warm them, and make them quite well again. And the two dear little baa-lambs would play about together—so pretty.”

It was a long speech,—the longest she had ever made all at once,—and the little girl’s eyes sparkled and her cheeks grew hot, with the difficulty she had in getting it out, so that mamma might understand. But mamma understands a good deal. Only it was less easy to explain to Sunny that she could neither have a lamb to play with, nor go out on the mountain to fetch it. However, mamma promised that if ever a little lamb were lost in the snow near her own house, and her gardener were to find it, he should be allowed to bring it in, and Sunny should make it warm by the fire and be kind to it, until it was quite well again.

But still the child went back now and then to the matter in a melancholy voice. “I don’t like a dear little baa-lamb to be lost in the snow. I want a little baa-lamb in my nursery. I would cuddle it and take such care of it” (for the strongest instinct of this little woman is to “take care” of people). “Mamma, some day may Sunny have a little baa-lamb to take care of?”

Mamma promised; for she knew well that if Sunny grows up to be a woman, with the same instinct of protection that she has now, God may send her many of His forlorn “lambs” to take care of.

Presently the baa-lambs were forgotten in a new sight,—a stream; a real, flowing, tumbling stream,—which ran alongside of the railway for ever so far. It jumped over rocks, and made itself into white foamy whirlpools; it looked so very much alive, and so unlike any water that Sunny had ever seen before, that she was quite astonished.

“What’s that? What’s that?” she kept saying; and at last, struck with a sudden idea, “Is it Scotland?”

What her notion of Scotland was,—whether a place, or a person, or a thing,—her mamma could not make out, but the name was firmly fixed in her mind, and she recurred to it constantly. All the long, weary journey, lasting till long after her proper bedtime, she never cried or fretted, or worried anybody, but amused herself without ceasing at what she saw. She ate her dinner merrily—“such a funny dinner,—no plates, no forks, no table-cloth”—and her tea,—milk drank out of a horn cup, instead of “great-grandpapa’s mug, which he had when he was a little boy,”—which she used when at home.

As the day closed in, she grew tired of looking out of the window, snuggled up in her mamma’s arms, and, turning her back upon the people in the carriage, whispered, blushing very much: “Maymie’s apron—Sunny wants the little Maymie’s apron;” and lay sucking it meditatively, till she dropped asleep.

She was asleep when the train reached Scotland. She did not see the stars coming out over the Grampian Hills, nor the beautiful fires near Gartsherrie—that ring of iron furnaces, blazing fiercely into the night—which are such a wonderful sight to behold. And she only woke up in time to have her hat and cloak put on, and be told that she was really in Scotland, and would see her aunties in a minute more. And, sure enough, in the midst of the bustle and confusion, there was Auntie Weirie’s bright face at the carriage-door, with her arms stretched out to receive the sleepy little traveller.

Four or five miles were yet to be accomplished, but it was in a comfortable carriage, dark and quiet.

The little girl’s tongue was altogether silent,—but she was not asleep, for all of a sudden she burst out, as if she had been thinking over the matter for a long time, “Mamma, you forgot the tickets.”

Everybody laughed; and mamma explained to her most accurate little daughter that she had given up the tickets while Sunny was asleep. Auntie Weirie forboded merrily how Sunny would “keep mamma in order” by and by.

Very sleepy and tired the poor child was; but, except one entreaty for “a little drop of milk,”—which somehow was got at,—she made no complaint, and never once cried until the carriage stopped at the house-door.

Oh, such a door and such a house! Quite a fairy palace! And there, standing waiting, was a pretty lady,—not unlike a fairy lady,—who took Little Sunshine in her arms and carried her off, unresisting, to a beautiful drawing-room, where, in the great tall mirrors, she could see herself everywhere at full length.

What a funny figure she was, trotting about and examining everything, as she always does on entering a strange room! Her little waterproof cloak made her look as broad as she was long; and when she tossed off her hat, her curls tumbled about in disorder, and her face and hands were so dirty that mamma was quite ashamed. But nobody minded it, and everybody welcomed her, and the pretty lady carried her off again up-stairs into the most charming extempore nursery, next to her mamma’s room, where she could run in and out, and be as happy as a queen.

She was as happy as a queen, when she woke up next morning to all the wonders of the house. First there was a poll-parrot, who could say not only, “Pretty Poll!” but a great many other words: could bark like a dog, grunt like a pig, and do all sorts of wonderful things. He lived chiefly in the butler’s pantry, but was brought out on occasion for the amusement of visitors. Sunny was taken to see him directly; and there she stood, watching him intently, laughing sometimes in her sudden, ecstatic way, with her head thrown back, and her little nose all crumpled up, till, being only a button of a nose at best, it nearly disappeared altogether.

And then, in the breakfast-room there were two dogs,—Jack, a young rough Scotch terrier, and Bob, a smooth terrier, very ugly and old. Now Sunny’s dog at home, Rose, who was a puppy when she was a baby, so that the two were brought up together, is the gentlest creature imaginable. She will let Sunny roll over her, and pull her paws and tail, and even put her little fat hand into her mouth, without growling or biting. But these strange dogs were not used to children. Sunny tried to make friends with them, as she tries to do with every live creature she sees; even crying one day because she could not manage to kiss a spider, it ran away so fast. But Bob and Jack did not understand her affection at all. When she stroked and patted them, and vainly tried to carry them in her arms, by the legs, head, tail, or anywhere she could catch hold of, they escaped away, scampering off as fast as they could. The little girl looked after them with mournful eyes; it was hard to see them frolicking about, and not taking the least notice of her.

But very soon somebody much better than a little dog began to notice her,—a kind boy named Franky, who, though he was a schoolboy, home for the holidays, did not think it in the least beneath his dignity to be good to a little girl. She sat beside him at prayers, during which time she watched him carefully, and evidently made up her mind that he was a nice person, and one to be played with. So when he began playing with her, she responded eagerly, and they were soon the best of friends.

Presently Franky had to leave her and go with his big brother down to the bottom of a coal mine, about which he had told such wonderful stories, that Little Sunshine, had she been bigger, would certainly have liked to go too. “You jump into a basket, and are let down, down, several hundred feet, till you touch the bottom, and then you find a new world underground: long passages, so narrow that you cannot stand upright, and loftier rooms between, and men working—as black as the coal themselves—with lights in their caps. Also horses, dragging trucks full of coal,—horses that have never seen the daylight since they were taken down the pit, perhaps seven or ten years ago, and will never see daylight again as long as they live. Yet they live happily, are kindly treated, and have comfortable stables, all in the dark of the coal mine,—and no doubt are quite as content as the horses that work in the outside world, high above their heads.”

Sunshine heard all this. I cannot say that she understood it, being such a very little girl, you know; but whenever Franky opened his lips she watched him with intense admiration, and when he was gone she looked quite sad. However, she soon found another friend in the pretty lady, Franky’s mamma. Her own mamma was obliged to go out directly after breakfast, so this other mamma took Sunny under her especial protection, and showed her all about the house. First, they visited the parrot, who went through all his performances over again. Then they proceeded up-stairs to what used to be the nursery, only the little girls had grown into big girls, and were now far away at school. But their mamma showed Sunny their old toy-cupboard, where were arranged, in beautiful order, playthings so lovely that it was utterly impossible such very tiny fingers could safely be trusted with them.

So Little Sunshine was obliged to practise the lesson she has learnt with her mamma’s china cabinet at home,—“Look and not touch.” Ever since she was a baby, Wedgwood ware, Sèvres and Dresden china, all sorts of delicate and precious things, have been left within her reach on open shelves; but she was taught from the first that she must not touch them, and she never does. “The things that Sunny may play with,” such as a small plaster hand, a bronze angel, and a large agate seal, she takes carefully out from among the rest, and is content with them,—just as content as she was with one particular doll which the pretty lady chose out from among these countless treasures and gave to her to play with.

Now Sunny has had a good many dolls,—wooden dolls, gutta-percha dolls, dolls made of linen with faces of wax,—but none of them had ever lasted, entire, for more than twenty-four hours. They always met with some misfortune or other,—lost a leg or an arm; their heads dropped off, and the sawdust ran out of their bodies, leaving them mere empty bits of calico, not dolls at all. The wrecks she had left behind her at home—bodies without heads, heads without bodies, arms and legs sewed upon bodies that did not belong to them, or strewed about separately in all directions—would have been melancholy to think of, only that she loved them quite as well in that dismembered condition as when they were new.

But this was a dolly,—such a dolly as Sunny had never had before. Perfectly whole, with a pretty waxen face, a nose, and two eyes; also hair, real hair that could be combed. This she at once proceeded to do with her mamma’s comb, just as her Lizzie did her own hair every morning, until the comb became full of long flaxen hairs—certainly not mamma’s—and there grew a large bald place on the top of dolly’s head, which Sunny did not understand at all. Thereupon her Lizzie came to the rescue, and proposed tying up the poor remnant of curls with a blue ribbon, and dressing dolly, whose clothes took off and on beautifully, in her out-of-doors dress, so that Sunshine might take her a walk, in the garden.

Lizzie is a very ingenious person in mending and dressing dollies, and has also the gift of unlimited patience with her charge; so the toilet went off very well, and soon both Sunshine and her doll were ready to go out with Franky’s mamma and see the cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and all the wonders of the outside establishment, which was a very large one.

Indeed, the pretty lady showed her so many curious things, and played with her so much, that when, just before dark, her own mamma came back, and saw a little roly-poly figure, hugging a large doll, running as fast as ever it could along the gravel walk to meet her, she felt convinced that the first day in Scotland had been a most delightful one, altogether perfect in its way. So much so that, when put to bed, Sunny again forgot Tommy Tinker. She was chattering so much of all she had seen, that it was not until the last minute that she remembered to ask for a “story.”

There was no story in mamma’s head to-night. Instead, she told something really true, which had happened in the street near the house where she had spent the day:

A poor little boy, just come out of school, was standing on the top of the school-door steps, with his books in his hand. Suddenly a horse that was passing took fright, rushed up the steps, and knocked the boy down. He fell several feet, and a huge stone fell after, just on the top of him—and—and—

Mamma stopped. She could not tell any more of the pitiful story. Her child’s eyes were fixed upon her face, which Little Sunny reads sometimes as plain as any book.

“Mamma, was the poor little boy hurt?”

“Yes, my darling.”

“Very much hurt?”

“Very much, indeed.”

Sunny sat upright, and began speaking loud and fast, in her impetuous, broken way.

“I want to go and see that poor little boy. I will bring him to my nursery and put him in my little bed, and take care of him. Then he will get quite well.”

And she looked much disappointed when her mamma explained that this was not necessary; somebody having already carried the little boy home to his mamma.

“Then his mamma will cuddle him, and kiss the sore place, and he will be quite well soon. Is he quite well?”

“Yes,” answered Sunny’s mamma, after a minute’s thought,—“yes, he is quite well now; nothing will ever hurt him any more.”

Sunny was perfectly satisfied.

But her mamma, when she kissed the little curly head, and laid it down on its safe pillow, thought of that other mother,—mourning over a dead child,—thoughts which Little Sunshine could not understand, nor was there any need she should. She may, some day, when she has a little girl of her own.

CHAPTER III.

Little Sunshine had never yet beheld the sea. That wonderful delight, a sea-beach, with little waves running in and running back again, playing at bo-peep among shingle and rocks, or a long smooth sandy shore, where you may pick up shells and seaweed and pebbles, and all sorts of curious things, and build castles and dig moats, filled with real water,—all this was unknown to the little girl. So her mamma, going to spend a day with a dear old friend, who lived at a lovely seaside house, thought she would take the child with her. Also “the big child,” as her Sunny sometimes called Lizzie, who enjoyed going about and seeing new places as much as the little child.

They started directly after breakfast one morning, leaving behind them the parrot, the dogs, and everything except Franky, who escorted them in the carriage through four or five miles of ugly town streets, where all the little children who ran about (and there seemed no end of them) had very rough bare heads, and very dirty bare feet.

Sunny was greatly struck by them.

“Look, mamma, that little boy has got no shoes and stockings on! Shall Sunny take off hers and give them to that poor little boy?”

And she was proceeding to unbutton her shoes, when her mamma explained that—the boy being quite a big boy—Sunny’s shoes would certainly not fit him, and if they did, he would probably not put them on; since in Scotland little boys and girls often go barefooted, and like it. Had not papa once taken off Sunny’s shoes and stockings, and let her run about upon the soft warm grass of the lawn, calling her “his little Scotch girl?”

Sunny accepted the reasoning, but still looked perplexed at the bare feet. They were “so dirty,” and she cannot bear to have the least speck of dirt on feet or hands or clothes, or anywhere about her. Her Auntie Weirie, on whose lap she sat, and of whom she had taken entire possession,—children always do,—was very much amused.

She put them safely into the train, which soon started,—on a journey which mamma knew well, but which seemed altogether fresh when seen through her child’s eyes. Such wonderful things for Sunshine to look at! Mountains,—she thoroughly understood mountains now; and a broad river, gradually growing broader still, until it was almost sea. Ships, too—some with sails, and some with chimneys smoking; “a puff-puff on the water,” Sunny called them. Every now and then there was a little “puff-puff” dragging a big ship after it, and going so fast, fast,—the big ship looking as proud as if it were sailing along all by its own self, and the little one puffing and blowing as busily as possible. Sunny watched them with much curiosity, and then started a brilliant idea.

“That’s a papa-boat and that’s a baby-boat, and the baby-boat pulls the papa-boat along! So funny!”

And she crumpled up her little face, and, tossing up her head, laughed her quite indescribable laugh, which makes everybody else laugh too.

There were various other curious things to be seen on the river, especially some things which mamma told her were called “buoys.” These of course she took to mean little “boys,” and looked puzzled, until mamma described them as “big red thimbles,” which she understood, and noticed each one with great interest ever afterward.

But it would be vain to tell all the things she saw, and all the delight she took in them. Occasionally her little face grew quite grave, such difficulty had she in understanding the wonders that increased more and more. And when at last the journey was ended and the train stopped, the little girl was rather troubled, and would not let go of her mamma for a single minute.

For the lovely autumn weather of yesterday had changed into an equinoctial gale. Inland, one did not so much perceive it, but at the seaside it was terrible. People living on that coast will long remember this particular day as one of the wildest of the season, or for several seasons. The wind blew, and the sea roared, as even mamma, who knew the place well, had seldom heard. Instead of tiny wavelets running after Sunny’s little feet, as had been promised her, there were huge “white horses” rising and falling in the middle of the river; while along the shore the waves kept pouring in, and dashing themselves in and out of the rocks, with force enough to knock any poor little girl down. Sunny could not go near them, and the wind was so high that her hat had to be tied on; and her cloak, a cape of violet wool, which Auntie Weirie had rushed to fetch at the last minute, in case of rain, was the greatest possible blessing. Still, fasten it as Lizzie would, the wind blew it loose again, and tossed her curls all over her face in a furious fashion, which the little girl could not understand at all.

“Sunny don’t like it,” said she, pitifully; and, forgetful of all the promised delights,—shells, and pebbles, and castles of sand,—took refuge gladly indoors.

However, this little girl is of such a happy nature in herself that she quickly grows happy anywhere. And the house she came to was such a beautiful house, with a conservatory full of flowers,—she is so fond of flowers,—and a large hall to play in besides. Her merry voice was soon heard in all directions, rather to her mamma’s distress, as the dear mistress of the house was not well. But Sunny comprehends that she must always speak in a whisper when people are not well; so she was presently quieted down, and came into the dining-room and ate her dinner by mamma’s side, as good as gold. She has always dined with mamma ever since she could sit up in a chair, so she behaves quite properly,—almost like a grown-up person. When she and mamma are alone, they converse all dinner-time; but when there are other people present, she is told that “little girls must be seen and not heard,”—a rule which she observes as far as she can. Not altogether, I am afraid, for she is very fond of talking.

Still, she was good, upon the whole, and enjoyed herself much, until she had her things put on again, ready to start once more, in a kind lady’s carriage, which was ordered to drive slowly along the shore, that Sunny might see as much as possible, without being exposed to the wind and spray. She was much interested, and a little awed. She ceased to chatter, and sat looking out of the carriage window on the curve of shore, over which the tide came pouring in long rollers, and sweeping back again in wide sheets of water mixed with white foam.

“Does Sunny like the waves?” asked the kind lady, who has a sweet way with children, and is very good to them, though she has none of her own.

“Yes, Sunny likes them,” said the little girl, after a pause, as if she were trying to make up her mind. “’Posing (supposing) Sunny were to go and swim upon them? If—if mamma would come too?”

“But wouldn’t Sunny be afraid?”

“No,” very decidedly this time. “Sunny would be quite safe if mamma came too.”

The lady smiled at mamma; who listened, scarcely smiling, and did not say a word.

It was a terrible day. The boats, and even big ships, were tossing about like cockle-shells on the gray, stormy sea; and the mountains, hiding themselves in mist, at last altogether disappeared. Then the rain began to fall in sheets, as it often does fall hereabouts,—soaking, blinding rain. At the station it was hardly possible to keep one’s footing: the little girl, if she had not been in her Lizzie’s arms, would certainly have been blown down before she got into the railway-carriage.

Once there,—safely sheltered from the storm,—she did not mind it in the least. She jumped about, and played endless tricks, to the great amusement of two ladies,—evidently a mamma and a grandmamma,—who compared her with their own little people, and were very kind to her,—as indeed everybody is when she travels. Still, even they might have got tired out, if Sunny had not fortunately grown tired herself, and began to yawn in the midst of her fun in a droll way.

Then mamma slyly produced out of her pocket the child’s best travelling companion,—the little Maymie’s apron. Sunny seized it with a scream of delight, cuddled down, sucking it, in her mamma’s arms, and in three minutes was sound asleep. Nor did she once wake up till the train stopped, and Lizzie carried her, so muffled up that nobody could have told whether it was a little girl or a brown paper parcel, to the carriage where faithful Franky waited for her, and had waited ever so long.

Fun and Franky always came together. Sunny shook herself wide awake at once,—fresh as a rose, and lively as a kitten. Oh, the games that began, and lasted all the four miles that the carriage drove through the pelting rain! Never was a big boy kinder to a little girl; so patient, so considerate; letting her do anything she liked with him; never cross, and never rough,—in short, a thorough gentleman, as all boys should be to all girls, and all men to all women, whether old or young. And when home was reached, the fire, like the welcome, was so warm and bright that Sunny seemed to have lost all memory of her day at the seaside,—the stormy waves, the dreary shore, the wild wind, and pouring rain. She was such a contented little girl that she never heeded the weather outside. But her mamma did a little, and thought of sailors at sea, and soldiers fighting abroad, and many other things.

The happy visit was now drawing to a close. Perhaps as well, lest, as some people foretold, Sunny might get “quite spoiled,”—if love spoils anybody, which I do not believe. Certainly this child’s felicities were endless. Everybody played with her; everybody was kind to her. Franky and Franky’s mamma, her two aunties, the parrot, the dogs Bob and Jack, were her companions by turns. There was another dog, Wallace by name, but she did not play with him, as he was an older and graver and bigger animal,—much bigger than herself indeed. She once faintly suggested riding him, “as if he was a pony,” but the idea was not caught at, and fell to the ground, as, doubtless, Sunny would have done immediately, had she carried out her wish.

Wallace, though big, was the gentlest dog imaginable. He was a black retriever, belonging to Franky’s elder brother, a grown-up young gentleman; and his devotion to his master was entire. The rest of the family he just condescended to notice, but Mr. John he followed everywhere with a quiet persistency, the more touching because poor Wallace was nearly blind. He had lost the sight of one eye by an accident, and could see out of the other very little. They knew how little, by the near chance he had often had of being run over by other carriages in following theirs; so that now Franky’s mamma never ventured to take him out with her at all. He was kept away from streets, but allowed to run up and down in the country, where his wonderful sense of smell preserved him from any great danger.

This sense of smell, common to all retrievers, seemed to have been doubled by Wallace’s blindness. He could track his master for miles and miles, and find anything that his master had touched. Once, just to try him, Mr. John showed him a halfpenny, and then hid it under a tuft of grass, and walked on across the country for half a mile or more. Of course the dog could not see where he hid it, and had been galloping about in all directions ever since; yet when his master said, “Wallace, fetch that halfpenny,” showing him another one, Wallace instantly turned back, smelling cautiously about for twenty yards or so; then, having caught the right scent, bounding on faster and faster, till out of sight. In half an hour more he came back, and ran direct to his master with the halfpenny in his mouth.

Since, Mr. John had sent the dog for his stick, his cap, or his handkerchief, often considerable distances; but Wallace always brought the thing safe back, whatever it was, and laid it at his master’s feet. Mr. John was very proud of Wallace, and very fond of him.

Sunny was not old enough to understand these clevernesses of the creature, but she fully appreciated one trick of his. He would hold a bit of biscuit or sugar on his nose, quite steady, for several minutes, while his master said “Trust,” not attempting to eat it; but when Mr. John said “Paid for!” Wallace gobbled it up at once. This he did several times, to Sunshine’s great delight, but always with a sort of hesitation, as if he considered it a little below the dignity of such a very superior animal. And the minute they were gone he would march away with his slow, blind step, following his beloved master.

But all pleasures come to an end, and so did these of Little Sunshine’s. First, Franky went off to school, and she missed him out of the house very much. Then one day, instead of the regular morning amusements, she had to be dressed quickly, to eat her breakfast twice as fast as usual, and have her “things” put on all in a hurry, “to go by the puff-puff.” Her only consolation was that Dolly should have her things put on too,—poor Dolly! who, from constant combing, was growing balder and balder every day, and whose clothes were slowly disappearing, so that it required all Lizzie’s ingenuity to dress her decently for the journey.

This done, Sunny took her in her arms, and became so absorbed in her as hardly to notice the affectionate adieux of her kind friends, some of whom went with her to the station: so she scarcely understood that it was good-bye. And besides, it is only elder folks who understand good-byes, not little people. All the better, too.

Sunshine was delighted to be in a puff-puff again, and to see more mountains. She watched them till she was tired, and then went comfortably to sleep, having first made Dolly comfortable too, lying as snug in her arms as she did in her mamma’s. But she and Dolly woke up at the journey’s end; when, indeed, Sunny became so energetic and lively, that, seeing her mamma and Lizzie carrying each a bag, she insisted on carrying something too. Seizing upon a large luncheon basket which the pretty lady had filled with no end of good things, she actually lifted it, and bore it, tottering under its weight, for several yards.

“See, mamma, Sunny can carry it,” said she in triumph, and her mamma never hinders the little girl from doing everything she can do; wishing to make her a useful and helpful woman, who will never ask anybody else to do for her what she can do for herself.

The place they were going to was quite different from that they had left. It was only lodgings,—in a house on the top of a hill,—but they were nice lodgings, and it was a bright breezy hill, sloping down to a beautiful glen, through which ran an equally beautiful stream. Thence, the country sloped up again, through woods and pasture-lands, to a dim range of mountains, far in the horizon. A very pretty place outside, and not bad inside, only the little girl’s “nursery” was not so large and cheerful as the one she was used to, and she missed the full house and the merry companions. However, being told that papa was coming to-morrow, she brightened up, and informed everybody, whether interested or not in the fact, that “Sunny was going to see papa jump out of a puff-puff, to-morrow.” “To-morrow” being still to her a very indefinite thing; but “papa jumping out of a puff-puff” has long been one of the great features of her existence.

Still, to-day she would have been rather dull, if, when she went out into the garden, there had not come timidly forward, to look at her, a little girl, whose name mamma inquired, and found that it was Nelly.

Nellie and Sunny on the steps.

Here a word or two ought to be said about Nelly, for she turned out the greatest comfort to solitary little Sunny, in this strange place. Nelly was not exactly “a young lady;” indeed, at first she hung back in a sweet, shy way, as doubtful whether Sunny’s mamma would allow the child to play with her. But Nelly was such a good little girl, so well brought-up, and sensible, though only ten years old, that a princess might have had her for a playfellow without any disadvantage. And as soon as mamma felt sure that Sunny would learn nothing bad from her,—which is the only real objection to playfellows,—she allowed the children to be together as much as ever they liked.

Nelly called Sunshine “a bonnie wee lassie,”—words which, not understanding what they meant, had already offended her several times since she came to Scotland.

“I’m not a bonnie wee lassie,—I’m Sunny; mamma’s little Sunny, I am!” cried she, almost in tears. But this was the only annoyance that Nelly ever gave her.

Very soon the two children were sitting together in a most charming play-place,—some tumble-down, moss-grown stone steps leading down to the garden. From thence you could see the country for miles, and watch the railway trains winding along like big serpents, with long feathers of steam and smoke streaming from their heads in the daylight, and great red fiery eyes gleaming through the dark.

Nelly had several stories to tell about them: how once a train caught fire, and blazed up,—they saw the blaze from these steps,—and very dreadful it was to look at; also, she wanted to know if Sunny had seen the river below; such a beautiful little river, only sometimes people were drowned in it,—two young ladies who were bathing, and also a schoolmaster, who had fallen into a deep hole, which was now called the Dominie’s Hole.

Nelly spoke broad Scotch, but her words were well chosen, and her manner very simple and gentle and sweet. She had evidently been carefully educated, as almost all Scotch children are. She went to school, she said, every morning, so that she could only play with Sunny of afternoons; but to-morrow afternoon, if the lady allowed,—there was still that pretty, polite hesitation at anything that looked like intrusiveness,—she would take Sunny and her Lizzie a walk, and show them all that was to be seen.

Sunny’s mamma not only allowed this, but was glad of it. Little Nelly seemed a rather grave and lonely child. She had no brothers and sisters, she said, but lived with her aunts, who were evidently careful over her. She was a useful little body; went many a message to the village, and did various things about the house, as a girl of ten can often do; but she was always neatly dressed, her hands and face quite clean, and her pretty brown hair, the chief prettiness she had, well combed and brushed. And, above all, she never said a rude or ugly word.

It was curious to see how Little Sunshine, who, though not shy or repellent, is never affectionate to strangers, and always declines caresses, saying “she only kisses papa and mamma,” accepted Nelly’s kiss almost immediately, and allowed her to make friends at once. Nay, when bedtime arrived, she even invited her to “come and see Sunny in her bath,” a compliment she only pays occasionally to her chief favourites. Soon the two solitary children were frolicking together, and the gloomy little nursery—made up extempore out of a back bedroom—ringing with their laughter.

At last, fairly tired with her day’s doings, Sunny condescended to go to sleep. Her mamma sat up for an hour or two longer, writing letters, and listening to the child’s soft breathing through the open door, to the equally soft soughing of the wind outside, and the faint murmur of the stream, deep below in the glen. Then she also went to rest.

CHAPTER IV.

Nelly turned out more and more of an acquisition every day. Pretty as this new place was, Little Sunshine was not quite so happy as the week before. She had not so many things to amuse her out-of-doors, and indoors she was kept more to her nursery than she approved of or was accustomed to, being in her own home mamma’s little friend and companion all day long. Now mamma was often too busy to attend to her, and had to slip away and hide out of sight; for whenever Sunny caught sight of her, the wail of “Mamma, mamma, I want you!” was really sad to hear.

Besides, she had another tribulation. In the nearest house, a short distance down the lane, lived six children whom she knew and was fond of, and had come to Scotland on purpose to play with. But alas! one of them caught the measles, and, Little Sunshine never having had measles, or anything,—in fact never having had a day’s illness or taken a dose of physic in her life,—the elders decided that it was best to keep the little folks apart. Mamma tried hard not to let Sunny find out that her dear playfellows of old lived so near; but one day these sharp little ears caught their names, and from that time she was always wanting to go and play with them, and especially with their “little baby.”

“I want to see that little baby, mamma; may Sunny go and cuddle the dear little baby?”

But it was the baby which had the measles, and some of the rest were not safe. So there was nothing for it but to give orders to each household that when they saw one another they were to run away at once; which they most honourably did. Still, it was hard for Sunny to see her little friends—whom she recognised at once, though they had not met for eight months—galloping about, as merry as possible, playing at “ponies,” and all sorts of things, while she was kept close to her Lizzie’s side and not allowed to go near them.

Thus, but for kind little Nelly, the child would have been dull,—at least, as dull as such a sunshiny child could well be,—which was not saying much. If she grows up with her present capacity for enjoying herself, little Sunny will be a blessing wherever she goes, since happy-minded people always make others happy. Still, Nelly was welcome company, especially of afternoons.

The days passed on very much alike. Before breakfast, Sunny always went a walk with her mamma, holding hands, and talking like two grown-up persons,—about the baa-lambs, and calves, and cows, which they met on their way along the hillside. It was a beautiful hillside, and everything looked so peaceful in the early morning. They seldom met anybody, except once, when they were spoken to by a funny-looking man, who greatly offended Sunny by asking if she were a boy or girl, but added, “It’s a fine bairn, anyhow!” Then he went on to say how he had just come “frae putting John M’Ewen in his coffin, ye ken; I’m gaun to Glasgow, but I’ll be back here o’ Saturday. Ay, ay, I’ll be back o’ Saturday,” as if the assurance must be the greatest satisfaction to Sunny and her mamma. Mamma thought he must have been drunk, but no, he was only foolish,—a poor half-witted fellow, whom all the neighbourhood knew, and were good to. He had some queer points. Among the rest, a most astonishing memory. He would go to church, and then repeat the sermon, or long bits of it, off by heart, to the first person he met. Though silly, he was quite capable of taking care of himself, and never harmed anybody. Everybody, Nelly said, was kind to “daft John.” Still, Sunny did not fancy him, and when she came home she told her papa a long story about “that ugly man!”

She had great games with her papa now and then, and was very happy whenever she could get hold of him. But her great companion was Nelly. From the minute Nelly came out of school till seven o’clock,—Sunny’s bedtime,—they were inseparable; and the way the big girl devoted herself to the little one, the patience with which she submitted to all her vagaries, and allowed herself to be tyrannised over,—never once failing in good temper and pleasantness,—was quite pretty to see. They played in the garden together, they went walks, they gathered blackberries, made them into jam, in a little saucer by the fire, and then ate them up. With a wooden spade, and a “luggie” to fill with earth, they used to go up the hillside, or down to the glen, sometimes disappearing for so long that mamma was rather unhappy in her mind, only Nelly was such a cautious little person, that whenever she went she was sure to bring her two charges home in safety.

One day, Nelly not being attainable, mamma went with the “big child” and the little one to the Dominie’s Hole.

It was a real long walk, especially for such tiny feet, that eighteen months ago could barely toddle alone; all across the field of the baa-lambs, which always interested Sunny so much that it was difficult to get her past them; she wanted to play with them and “cuddle” them, and was much surprised when they invariably ran away. However, she was to-day a little consoled by mamma’s holding her upon the top of the stone dike at the end of the field, to watch “the water running” between the trees of the glen.

In Scotland water runs as I think it never does in England,—so loudly and merrily, so fast and bright. Even when it is brown water,—as when coming over peat it often is,—there is a beauty about it beyond all quiet Southern streams. Here, however, it was not coloured, but clear as crystal in every channel of the little river, and it was divided into tiny channels by big stones, and shallow, pebbly watercourses, and overhanging rocks covered with ferns, and heather, and mosses. Beneath these were generally round pools, where the river settled dark and still, though so clear that you could easily see to the bottom, which looked only two or three feet deep, when perhaps it was twelve or fifteen.

The Dominie’s Hole was one of these. You descended to it by a winding path through the glen, and then came suddenly out upon a sheltered nook surrounded by rocks, over which the honeysuckles crept, and the birk or mountain ash grew out of every possible cranny. Down one of these rocks the pent-up stream poured in a noisy little waterfall, forming below a deep bathing-pool, cut in the granite—I think it was granite—like a basin, with smooth sides and edges. Into this pool, many years ago, the poor young “Dominie,” or schoolmaster, had dived, and striking his head against the bottom, had been stunned and drowned. He was found floating, dead, in the lonely little pool, which ever after bore his name.

A rather melancholy place, and the damp, sunless chill of it made it still more gloomy, pretty as it was. Little Sunshine, who cannot bear living in shadow, shivered involuntarily, and whispered, “Mamma, take her!” as she always does in any doubtful or dangerous circumstances. So mamma was obliged to carry her across several yards of slippery stones, green with moss, that she might look up to the waterfall, and down to the Dominie’s Hole. She did not quite like it, evidently, but was not actually frightened,—she is such a very courageous person whenever she is in her mamma’s arms.

When set down on her own two feet, the case was different. She held by her mamma’s gown, looked at the noisy tumbling water with anxious eyes, and seemed relieved to turn her back upon it, and watch the half-dozen merry rivulets into which it soon divided, as they spread themselves in and out over the shallow channel of the stream. What charming little baby rivers they were! Sunny and her mamma could have played among them for hours, damming them up with pebbles, jumping over them, floating leaves down them, and listening to their ceaseless singing, and their dancing too, with bubbles and foam gliding on their surface like little fairy boats, till—pop!—all suddenly vanished, and were seen no more.

It was such a thirsty place, too,—until mamma made her hand into a cup for the little girl, and then the little girl insisted on doing the same for mamma, which did not answer quite the same purpose, being so small. At last mamma took out of her pocket a letter (it was a sad letter, with a black edge, but the child did not know that), and made its envelope into a cup, from which Sunny drank in the greatest delight. Afterward she administered it to her mamma and her Lizzie, till the saturated paper began to yield,—its innocent little duty was done. However, Sunny insisted on filling it again herself, and was greatly startled when the bright, fierce-running water took it right out of her hand, whirled it along for a yard or two, and then sunk it, soaked through, in the first eddy which the stream reached.

Poor child! she looked after her frail treasure with eyes in which big tears—and Sunny’s tears, when they do come, are so very big!—were just beginning to rise; and her rosy mouth fell at the corners, with that pitiful look mamma knows well, though it is not often seen.

“Never mind, my darling; mamma will make her another cup out of the next letter she has. Or, better still, she will find her own horn cup, that has been to Scotland so often, and gone about for weeks in mamma’s pocket, years ago. Now Sunny shall have it to drink out of.”

“And to swim? May Sunny have it to swim?”

“No, dear, because, though it would not go down to the bottom like the other cup, it might swim right away and be lost, and then mamma would be so sorry. No, Sunny can’t have it to swim, but she may drink out of it as often as she likes. Shall we go home and look for it?”

“Yes.”

The exact truth, told in an intelligible and reasonable way, always satisfies this reasonable child, who has been accustomed to have every prohibition explained to her, so far as was possible. Consequently, the sense of injustice, which even very young children have, when it is roused, never troubles her. She knows mamma will give her everything she can, and when she does not, it is simply because she can’t; and she tells Sunny why she can’t, whenever Sunny can understand it.

So they climbed contentedly up the steep brae, and went home.

Nothing else happened here—at least to the child. If she had a rather dull life, it was a peaceful one. She was out-of-doors a great deal, with Lizzie and Nelly of afternoons, with her mamma of early mornings. Generally, each day, the latter contrived to get a quiet hour or two; while her child played about the garden steps, and she sat reading the newspaper,—the terrible newspaper! When Sunny has grown up a woman, she will know what a year this year 1870 has been, and understand how, many a time, when her mamma was walking along with her, holding her little hand and talking about all the pretty things they saw, she was thinking of other mothers and other children, who, instead of running merrily over sunshiny hillsides, were weeping over dead fathers, or dying miserably in burnt villages, or starving, day by day, in besieged cities. This horrible war, brought about, as war almost always is, by a few wicked, ambitious men, made her feel half frantic.

One day especially,—the day the Prussians came and sat down before Paris, and began the siege,—Little Sunshine was playing about, with her little wooden spade, and a “luggie,” that her papa had lately bought for her; filling it with pebbles, and then digging in the garden-beds, with all her small might. Her mamma sat on the garden steps, reading the newspaper. Sunny did not approve of this at all.

“Come and build me a house. Put that down,” pulling at the newspaper, “and build Sunny a house. Please, mamma,” in a very gentle tone,—she knows in a minute, by mamma’s look, when she has spoken too roughly,—“Please, mamma, come and build Sunny a house.”

And getting no answer, she looked fixedly at her mamma,—then hugged her tight around the neck and began to sob for sympathy. Poor lamb! She had evidently thought only little girls cried,—not mammas at all.

The days ran on fast, fast; and it was time for another move and another change in Little Sunshine’s holiday. Of course she did not understand these changes; but she took them cheerfully,—she was the very best of little travellers. The repeated packing had ceased to be an interest to her; she never wanted now to jump upon mamma’s gowns, and sit down on her bonnets, by way of being useful; but still the prospect of going in a puff-puff was always felicitous. She told Nelly all about it; and how she was afterward to sail in a boat, with Maurice and Maurice’s papa (Maurice was a little playfellow, of whom more presently), how they were to go fishing and catch big salmon.

“Wouldn’t you like to catch a big salmon?” she asked Nelly, not recognising in the least that she was parting with her, probably never to meet again in all their lives. But the elder child looked sad and grave during the whole of that day. And when for the last time Nelly put her arms around Sunny and kissed her over and over again, Sunny being of course just as merry as ever, and quite unconscious that they were bidding one another good-bye, it was rather hard for poor little Nelly.

However, the child did not forget her kind companion. For weeks and even months afterwards, upon hearing the least allusion to this place, Sunshine would wake up into sudden remembrance. “Where’s Nelly? I want to see Nelly,—I want Nelly to come and play with me;” and look quite disappointed when told that Nelly was far away, and couldn’t come. Which was, perhaps, as much as could be expected of three years old.

Always happy in the present, and frightened at nothing so long as she was “close by mamma,” Little Sunshine took her next journey. On the way she stayed a night at the seaside place where she had been taken before, and this time the weather was kind. She wandered with her Lizzie on the beach, and watched the waves for a long time; then she went indoors to play with some other little children, and to pay a visit to the dear old lady who had been ill, when she was here last. Here, I am afraid, she did not behave quite as well as she ought to have done,—being tired and sleepy; nor did she half enough value the kind little presents she got; but she will some day, and understand the difference between eighty years of age and three, and how precious to a little child is the blessing of an old woman.

Sunny went to bed rather weary and forlorn, but she woke up, next morning, and ran in to papa and mamma, still in her nightgown, with her little bare feet pattering along the floor, looking as bright as the sunshine itself. Which was very bright that day,—a great comfort, as there was a ten hours’ sea-voyage before the little woman, who had never been on board a steamboat, and never travelled so long at a time in all her life. She made a good breakfast to start with, sitting at table with a lot of grown-up people whose faces were as blithe as her own, and behaving very well, considering. Then came another good-bye, of course unheeded by Little Sunshine, and she was away on her travels once more.

But what happened to her next must be put into a new chapter.

CHAPTER V.

The pier Sunny started from was one near the mouth of a large estuary or firth, where a great many ships of all sorts are constantly coming and going. Sometimes the firth is very stormy, as on the first day when she was there, but to-day it was smooth as glass. The mountains around it looked half asleep in a sunshiny haze, and upon the river itself was not a single ripple. The steamers glided up and down in the distance as quietly as swans upon a lake. You could just catch the faint click-clack of their paddle-wheels, and see the long trail of smoke following after them, till it melted into nothing.

“Where’s Sunny’s steamboat? Sunny is going to sail in a steamboat,” chattered the little girl; who catches up everything, sometimes even the longest words and the queerest phrases, nobody knows how.

Sunny’s steamboat lay alongside the pier. Its engines were puffing and its funnel smoking; and when she came to the gangway she looked rather frightened, and whispered, “Mamma, take her,” holding out those pathetic little arms.

Mamma took her, and from that safe eminence she watched everything: the men loosing the ropes from the pier, the engines moving, the seagulls flying about in little flocks, almost as tame as pigeons. She was much amused by these seagulls, which always follow the steamers, seeming to know quite well that after every meal on board they are sure to get something. She called her Lizzie to look at them,—her Lizzie who always sympathises with her in everything. Now it was not quite easy, as Lizzie also had never been on board a steamer before, and did not altogether relish it.

But she, too, soon grew content and happy, for it was a beautiful scene. There was no distant view, the mountains being all in a mist of heat, but the air was so bright and mild, with just enough saltness in it to be refreshing, that it must have been a very gloomy person who did not enjoy the day. Little Sunshine did to the utmost. She could not talk, but became absorbed in looking about her, endless wonder at everything she saw or heard shining in her blue eyes. Soon she heard something which brightened them still more.

“Hark, mamma! music! Sunny hears music.”

It was a flute played on the lower deck, and played exceedingly well.

Now this little girl has a keen sense of music. Before she could speak, singing always soothed her; and she has long been in the habit of commanding extempore tunes,—“a tune that Sunny never heard before,” sometimes taking her turn to offer one. “Mamma, shall I sing you a song,—a song you never heard before?” (Which certainly mamma never had). She distinguishes tunes at once, and is very critical over them. “Sunny likes it,” or “Sunny don’t like it,—it isn’t pretty;” and at the sound of any sort of music she pricks up her ears, and will begin to cry passionately if not taken to listen.

This flute she went after at once. It was played by a blind man, who stood leaning against the stairs leading to the higher deck, his calm, sightless face turned up to the dazzling sunshine. It could not hurt him; he seemed even to enjoy it. There was nobody listening, but he played on quite unconsciously, one Scotch tune after another, the shrill, clear, pure notes floating far over the sea. Sunny crept closer and closer,—her eyes growing larger and larger with intense delight,—till the man stopped playing. Then she whispered, “Mamma, look at that poor man! Somekin wrong with his eyes.”

Sunny has been taught that whenever there is “somekin (something) wrong” with anybody,—when they are blind, or lame, or ugly, or queer-looking, we are very sorry for them, but we never notice it; and so, though she has friends who cannot run about after her, but walk slowly with a stick, or even two sticks,—also other friends who only feel her little face, and pass their hands over her hair, saying how soft it is,—mamma is never afraid of her making any remark that could wound their feelings.

“Hush! the poor man can’t see, but we must not say anything about it. Come with mamma, and we will give him a penny.” All sorts of money are “pennies” to Sunny,—brown pennies, white pennies, yellow pennies; only she much prefers the brown pennies, because they are largest, and spin the best.

So she and mamma went up together to the poor blind man, Sunny looking hard at him; and he was not pleasant to look at, as his blindness seemed to have been caused by smallpox. But the little girl said not a word, only put the white “penny” into his hand and went away.

I wonder whether he felt the touch of those baby fingers, softer than most. Perhaps he did, for he began to play again, the “Flowers of the Forest,” with a pathos that even mamma in all her life had never heard excelled. The familiar mountains, the gleaming river, the “sunshiny” child, with her earnest face, and the blind man playing there, in notes that almost spoke the well-known words,

“Thy frown canna fear me, thy smile canna cheer me,

For the flowers o’ the forest are a wede away.”

It was a picture not easily to be forgotten.

Soon the steamer stopped at another pier, where were waiting a number of people, ready to embark on a large excursion boat which all summer long goes up and down the firth daily, taking hundreds of passengers, and giving them twelve pleasant hours of sea air and mountain breezes. She was called the Iona, and such a big boat as she was! She had two decks, with a saloon below. On the first deck, the passengers sat in the open air, high up, so as to see all the views; the second was under cover, with glass sides, so that they could still see all about; the third, lower yet, was the cabin, where they dined. There was a ladies’ cabin, too, where a good many babies and children, with their nurses and mammas, generally stayed all the voyage. Altogether, a most beautiful boat, with plenty of play-places for little folk, and comfortable nooks for elder ones; and so big, too, that, as she came steaming down the river, she looked as if she could carry a townful of people. Indeed, this summer, when nobody has travelled abroad, owing to the war, the Iona had carried regularly several hundreds a day.

Sunny gazed with some amazement from the pier, where she had disembarked, in her mamma’s arms. It is fortunate for Sunny that she has a rather tall mamma, so that she feels safely elevated above any crowd. This was a crowd such as she had never been in before; it jostled and pushed her, and she had to hold very tight round her mamma’s neck; so great was the confusion, and so difficult the passage across the gangway to the deck of the Iona. Once there, however, she was as safe and happy as possible, playing all sorts of merry tricks, and wandering about the boat in all directions, with her papa, or her Lizzie, or two young ladies who came with her, and were very kind to her. But after awhile these quitted the boat, and were watched climbing up a mountainside as cleverly as if they had been young deer. Sunny would have liked to climb a mountain too, and mamma promised her she should some day.

She was now in the very heart of the Highlands. There were mountains on all sides, reflected everywhere in the narrow seas through which the boat glided. Now and then came houses and piers, funny little “baby” piers, at which the Iona stopped and took up or set down passengers, when everybody rushed to the side to look on. Sunny rushed likewise; she became so interested and excited in watching the long waves the boat left behind her when her paddles began to move again, that her mamma was sometimes frightened out of her life that the child should overbalance herself and tumble in. Once or twice poor mamma spoke so sharply that Sunny, utterly unaccustomed to this, turned around in mute surprise. But little girls, not old enough to understand danger, do not know what terrors mammas go through sometimes for their sakes.

It was rather a relief when Sunny became very hungry, and the bag of biscuits, and the bottle of milk occupied her for a good while. Then she turned sleepy. The little Maymie’s apron being secretly produced, she, laughing a little, began to suck it, under cover of mamma’s shawl. Soon she fell asleep, and lay for nearly an hour in perfect peace, her eyes shut upon mountains, sea, and sky; and the sun shining softly upon her little face and her gold curls, that nestled close into mamma’s shoulder. Such a happy child!

Almost cruel it seemed to wake her up, but necessary; for there came another change. The Iona’s voyage was done. The next stage of the journey was through a canal, where were sights to be seen so curious that papa and mamma were as much interested in them as the little girl, who was growing quite an old traveller now. She woke up, rubbed her eyes, and, not crying at all, was carried ashore, and into the middle of another crowd. There was a deal of talking and scrambling, and rushing about with bags and cloaks, then all the heavier luggage was put into two gigantic wagons, which four great horses walked away with, and the passengers walked in a long string of twos and threes, each after the others, for about a quarter of a mile, till they came to the canal-side. There lay a boat, so big that it could only go forward and backward,—I am sure if it had wanted to turn itself around it could not possibly have done so! On board of it all the people began to climb. Very funny people some of them were.

There was one big tall gentleman in a dress Sunny had never seen before,—a cap on his head with a feather in it, a bag with furry tails dangling from his waist, and a petticoat like a little girl. He had also rather queer shoes and stockings, and when he took out from his ankle, as it seemed, a shiny-handled sort of knife, and slipped it back again, Sunny was very much surprised.

“Mamma,” she whispered, “what does that gentleman keep his knife in his stocking for?” A question to which mamma could only answer “that she really didn’t know. Perhaps he hadn’t got a pocket.”

“Sunny will give him her pocket,—her French pinafore with pockets in it, shall she?”

Mamma thought the big Highlander might not care for Sunny’s pretty muslin pinafore, with embroidery and Valenciennes lace, sewn for her by loving, dainty hands; and as the boat now moved away, and he was seen stalking majestically off along the road, there was no need to ask him the question.

For a little while the boat glided along the smooth canal, so close to either side that you felt as if you could almost pluck at the bushes, and ferns, and trailing brambles, with fast-ripening berries, that hung over the water. On the other side was a foot-road, where, a little way behind, a horse was dragging, with a long rope, a small, deeply laden canal-boat, not pretty like this one, which went swiftly and merrily along by steam. But at last it came to a stand, in front of two huge wooden gates which shut the canal in, and through every crevice of which the pent-in water kept spouting in tiny cataracts.

“That’s the first of the locks,” said papa, who had seen it all before, and took his little girl to the end of the boat to show her the wonderful sight.

She was not old enough to have it explained, or to understand what a fine piece of engineering work this canal is. It cuts across country from sea to sea, and the land not being level, but rising higher in the middle, and as you know water will not run up a hillside and down again, these locks had to be made. They are, so to speak, boxes of water with double gates at either end. The boat is let into them, and shut in; then the water upon which it floats is gradually raised or lowered according as may be necessary, until it reaches the level of the canal beyond the second gate, which is opened and the boat goes in. There are eight or nine of these locks within a single mile,—a very long mile, which occupies fully an hour. So the captain told his passengers they might get out and walk, which many of them did. But Sunshine, her papa and mamma, were much more amused in watching the great gates opening and shutting, and the boat rising or falling through the deep sides of the locks. Besides, the little girl called it “a bath,” and expressed a strong desire to jump in and “swim like a fish,” with mamma swimming after her! So mamma thought it as well to hold her fast by her clothes the whole time.

Especially when another interest came,—three or four little Highland girls running alongside, jabbering gayly, and holding out glasses of milk. Her own bottle being nearly drained, Sunny begged for some; and the extraordinary difficulty papa had in stretching over to get the milk without spilling it, and return the empty glass without breaking it, was a piece of fun more delightful than even the refreshing draught. “Again!” she said, and wanted the performance all repeated for her private amusement.

She had now resumed her old tyranny over her papa, whom she pursued everywhere. He could not find a single corner of the boat in which to hide and read his newspaper quietly, without hearing the cry, “Where’s my papa? Sunny must go after papa,” and there was the little figure clutching at his legs. “Take her up in your arms! up in your own arms!” To which the victim, not unwillingly, consented, and carried her everywhere.

Little Sunshine’s next great diversion was dinner. It did not happen till late in the afternoon, when she had gone through, cheerfully as ever, another change of boat, and was steaming away through the open sea, which, however, was fortunately calm as a duck-pond, or what would have become of this little person?

Papa questioned very much whether she was not far too little a person to dine at the cabin-table with all the other grown-up passengers, but mamma answered for her that she would behave properly,—she always did whenever she promised. For Sunny has the strongest sense of keeping a promise. Her one argument when wanting a thing, an argument she knows never denied, is, “Mamma, you promised.” And her shoemaker, who once neglected to send home her boots, has been immortalised in her memory as “Mr. James So-and-so, who broke his promise.”

So, having promised to be good, she gravely took her papa’s hand and walked with him down the long cabin to her place at the table. There she sat, quite quiet, and very proud of her position. She ate little, being too deeply occupied in observing everything around her. And she talked still less, only whispering mysteriously to her mamma once or twice.

“Sunny would like a potato, with butter on it.” “Might Sunny have one little biscuit—just one?”

But she troubled nobody, spilt nothing, not even her glass of water, though it was so big that with both her fat hands she could scarcely hold it; and said “Thank you” politely to a gentleman who handed her a piece of bread. In short, she did keep her promise, conducting herself throughout the meal with perfect decorum. But when it was over, I think she was rather glad.

“Sunny may get down now?” she whispered; adding, “Sunny was quite good, she was.” For the little woman always likes to have her virtues acknowledged.

And in remounting the companion-ladder, rather a trial for her small legs, she looked at the steward, who was taking his money, and observed to him, in a confidential tone, “Sunny has had a good dinner; Sunny liked it,”—at which the young man couldn’t help laughing.

But everybody laughs at Sunny, or with her,—she has such an endless fund of enjoyment in everything. The world to her is one perpetual kaleidoscope of ever changing delights.

Immediately after dinner she had a pleasure quite new. Playing about the deck, she suddenly stopped and listened.

“Mamma, hark! there’s music. May Sunny go after the music?” And her little feet began to dance rather than walk, as, pulling her mamma by the hand, she “went after” a German band that was playing at the other end of the vessel.

Little Sunshine had never before heard a band, and this was of wind instruments, played very well, as most German musicians can play. The music seemed to quiver all through her, down to her very toes. And when the dance-tune stopped, and her dancing feet likewise, and the band struck up the beautiful “Wacht am Rhein,”—the “Watch on the Rhine,”—(oh! if its singers had only stopped there, defending their fatherland, and not invaded the lands of other people!), this little girl, who knew nothing about French and Prussians, stood absorbed in solemn delight. Her hands were folded together (a trick she has), her face grew grave, and a soul far deeper than three years old looked out of her intent eyes. For when Sunny is earnest, she is very earnest; and when she turns furious, half a dozen tragedies seem written in her firm-set mouth, knitted brow, and flashing eyes.

She was disposed to be furious for a minute, when her Lizzie tried to get her away from the music. But her mamma let her stay, so she did stay close to the musicians, until the playing was all done.

It was growing late in the afternoon, near her usual bedtime, but no going to bed was possible. The steamboat kept ploughing on through lonely seas, dotted with many islands, larger or smaller, with high mountains on every side, some of them sloping down almost to the water’s edge. Here and there was a solitary cottage or farmhouse, but nothing like a town or village. The steamboat seemed to have the whole world to itself,—sea, sky, mountains,—a magnificent range of mountains! behind which the sun set in such splendour that papa and mamma, watching it together, quite forgot for the time being the little person who was not old enough to care for sunsets.

When they looked up, catching the sound of her laughter, there she was, in a state of the highest enjoyment, having made friends, all of her own accord, with two gentlemen on board, who played with her and petted her extremely. One of them had just taken out of his pocket a wonderful bird, which jumped out of a box, shook itself, warbled a most beautiful tune, and then popped down in the box again; not exactly a toy for a child, as only about half a dozen have ever been made, and they generally cost about a hundred guineas apiece.

Of course Sunny was delighted. She listened intently to the warble, and whenever the bird popped down and hid itself again, she gave a scream of ecstasy. But she cannot enjoy things alone.

“May mamma come and see it? Mamma would like to see it, she would!” And, running back, Sunny drew her mamma, with all her little might, over to where the gentlemen were sitting.

They were very polite to the unknown lady, and went over the performance once again for her benefit. And they were exceedingly kind to her little girl, showing a patience quite wonderful, unless, indeed, they had little girls of their own. They tried pertinaciously to find out Sunny’s name, but she as persistently refused to disclose it,—that is, anything more than her Christian name, which is rather a peculiar one, and which she always gives with great dignity and accuracy, at full length. (Which, should they really have little girls of their own, and should they buy this book for them and read it, those two gentlemen will probably remember; nor think the worse of themselves that their kindness helped to while away what might otherwise have been rather dreary, the last hour of the voyage,—a very long voyage for such a small traveller.)

It was ended at last. The appointed pier, a solitary place where only one other passenger was landed, stood out distinct in the last rays of sunset. Once again the child was carried across one of those shaky gangways,—neither frightened nor cross and quite cheerful and wide awake still. Nay, she even stopped at the pier-head, her attention caught by some creatures more weary than herself.

Half a dozen forlorn sheep, their legs tied together, and their heads rolling about, with the most piteous expression in their open eyes, lay together, waiting to be put on board. The child went up to them and stroked their faces.

“Poor little baa-lambs, don’t be so frightened; you won’t be frightened, now Sunny has patted you,” said she, in her tenderest voice. And then, after having walked a few yards:

“Sunny must go back. Please, mamma, may Sunny go back to say good-bye to those poor little baa-lambs?”

But the baa-lambs had already been tossed on board, and the steamer was away with them into the dark.

Into the dark poor little Sunny had also to go; a drive of nine miles across country, through dusky glens, and coming out by loch sides, and under the shadow of great mountains, above whose tops the stars were shining. Only the stars, for there was no moon, and no lamps to the carriage; and the driver, when spoken to, explained—in slow Highland English, and in a mournful manner, evidently not understanding the half of what was said to him—that there were several miles farther to go, and several hills to climb yet; and that the horse was lame, and the road not as safe as it might be. A prospect which made the elders of the party not perfectly happy, as may well be imagined.

But the child was as merry as possible, though it was long past her tea-time and she had had no tea, and past bedtime, yet there was no bed to go to; she kept on chattering till it was quite dark, and then cuddled down, making “a baby” of her mamma’s hand,—a favourite amusement. And so she lay, the picture of peace, until the carriage stopped at the welcome door, and there stood a friendly group with two little boys in front of it. After eleven hours of travelling, Little Sunshine had reached a shelter at last!

CHAPTER VI.

Sunrise among the mountains. Who that has ever seen it can forget it? Sunny’s mamma never could.

Arriving here after dark, she knew no more of the place than the child did. But the first thing she did on waking next morning was to creep past the sofa where Sunny lay,—oh, so fast asleep! having had a good scream overnight, as was natural after all her fatigues,—steal cautiously to the window, and look out.

Such a sight! At the foot of a green slope, or sort of rough lawn, lay the little loch so often spoken of, upon which Sunny was to go a-fishing and catch big salmon with Maurice’s papa. Round it was a ring of mountains, so high that they seemed to shut out half the sky. These were reflected in the water, so solidly and with such a sharp, clear outline, that one could hardly believe it was only a reflection. Above their summit was one mass of deep rose-colour, and this also was repeated in the loch, so that you could not tell which was reddest, the water or the sky. Everything was perfectly still; not a ripple moved, not a leaf stirred, not a bird was awake. An altogether new and magic world.

Sunny was too much of a baby yet to care for sunrise, or, indeed, for anything just now, except a good long sleep, so her mamma let her sleep her fill; and when she woke at last she was as bright as a bird.

Long before she was dressed, she heard down-stairs the voices of the five little boys who were to be her companions. Their papa and mamma having no objection to their names being told, I give them, for they were five very pretty names: Maurice, Phil, Eddie, Franky, and Austin Thomas. The latter being the youngest, though by no means the smallest or thinnest, generally had his name in full, with variations, such as Austin Tummas, or Austin Tummacks. Maurice, too, was occasionally called Maurie,—but not often, being the eldest, you see.

He was seven, very small for his age, but with a face almost angelic in its delicate beauty. The first time Sunny saw him, a few months before, she had seemed quite fascinated by it, put her two hands on his shoulders, and finally held up her mouth to kiss him,—which she seldom does to any children, rather preferring “grown-ups,” as she calls them, for playfellows. She had talked ever since of Maurice, Maurice’s papa, Maurice’s boat, and especially of Maurice’s “little baby,” the only sister of the five boys. Yet when he came to greet her this morning, she was quite shy, and would not play with him or Eddie, or even Franky, who was nearer her own age; and when her mamma lifted up Austin Thomas, younger than herself but much bigger in every way, and petted him a little, this poor little woman fell into great despair.

“Don’t kiss him. I don’t want you to kiss Austin Thomas!” she cried, and the passion which can rise at times in her merry blue eyes rose now. She clung to her mamma, almost sobbing.

Of course this was not right, and, as I said before, the little girl is not a perfect little girl. She is naughty at times, like all of us. Still, mamma was rather sorry for her. It was difficult for an only child, accustomed to have her mamma all to herself, to tumble suddenly into such a crowd of boys, and see that mamma could be kind to and fond of other children besides her own, as all mothers ought to be, without taking away one atom from the special mother’s love, which no little people need be jealous over. Sunny bore the trial pretty well, on the whole. She did not actually cry,—but she kept fast hold of her mamma’s gown, and watched her with anxious eyes whenever she spoke to any other child, and especially to Austin Thomas.

The boys were very kind to her. Maurice went and took hold of her hand, trying to talk to her in his gentle way; his manners were as sweet as his face. Eddie, who was stronger and rougher, and more boyish, wanted her to go down with him to the pier,—a small erection of stones at the shallow edge of the loch, where two or three boats always lay moored. Consequently the boys kept tumbling in and out of them,—and in and out of the water, too, very often,—all day long. But the worst they ever could get was a good wetting,—except Austin Thomas, who one day toddled in and slipped down, and, being very fat, could not pull himself up again; so that, shallow as the water was, he was very near being drowned. But Maurice and Eddie were almost “water babies,”—so thoroughly at home in the loch,—and Eddie, though under six years old, could already handle an oar.

“I can low” (row,—he could not speak plain yet). “I once lowed grandpapa all across the loch. Shall I low you and the little girl?”

But mamma rather hesitated at accepting the kind offer, and compromised the matter by going down to the pier with Sunny in her arms, to watch Eddie “low,”—about three yards out and back again,—in a carefully moored boat. Sunny immediately wanted to go too, and mamma promised her she should, after breakfast, when papa was there to take care of her.

So the little party went back to the raised terrace in front of the house, where the sun was shining so bright, and where Phil, who was in delicate health, stood looking on with his pale, quiet face,—sadly quiet and grave for such a child,—and Franky, who was reserved and shy, stopped a moment in his solitary playing to notice the newcomer, but did not offer to go near her. Austin Thomas, however, kept pulling at her with his stout, chubby arms, but whether he meant caressing or punching it was difficult to say. Sunny opposed a dignified resistance, and would not look at Austin Thomas at all.

“Mamma, I want to stop with you. May Sunny stop with you?” implored she. “You said Sunny should go in the boat with you.”

Mamma always does what she says, if she possibly can, and, besides, she felt a sympathy for her lonely child, who had not been much used to play with other children. So she kept Sunny beside her till they went down together—papa too—for their first row on the loch.

Such a splendid day! Warm but fresh—how could it help being fresh in that pure mountain air, which turned Sunny’s cheeks the colour of opening rosebuds, and made even papa and mamma feel almost as young as she? Big people like holidays as well as little people, and it was long since they had had a holiday. This was the very perfection of one, when everybody did exactly as they liked; which consisted chiefly in doing nothing from morning till night.

Sunny was the only person who objected to idleness. She must always be doing something.

“I want to catch fishes,” said she, after having sat quiet by mamma’s side in the stern of the boat for about three minutes and a half: certainly not longer, though it was the first time she had ever been in a boat in all her life, and the novelty of her position sufficed to sober her for just that length of time. “I want to catch big salmon all by my own self.”

A fishing-rod had, just as a matter of ceremony, been put into the boat; but as papa held the two oars, and mamma the child, it was handed over to Lizzie, who sat in the bow. However, not a single trout offering to bite, it was laid aside, and papa’s walking-stick used instead. This was shorter, more convenient, and had a beautiful hooked handle, which could catch floating leaves. Leaves were much more easily caught than fishes, and did quite as well.

Little Sunshine goes fishing.

The little girl had now her heart’s desire. She was in a boat fishing.

“Sunny has caught a fish! Such a big fish!” cried she, in her shrillest treble of delight, every time that event happened. And it happened so often that the bench was soon quite “soppy” with wet leaves. Then she gave up the rod, and fished with her hands, mamma holding her as tight as possible, lest she should overbalance, and be turned into a fish herself. But water will wet; and mamma could not save her from getting her poor little hands all blue and cold, and her sleeves soaked through. She did not like this; but what will not we endure, even at two and three-quarters old, in pursuit of some great ambition? It was not till her hands were numbed, and her pinafore dripping, that Sunny desisted from her fishing, and then only because her attention was caught by something else even more attractive.

“What’s that, mamma? What’s that?”

“Water-lilies.”

Papa, busily engaged in watching his little girl, had let the boat drift upon a shoal of them, which covered one part of the loch like a floating island. They were so beautiful, with their leaves lying like green plates flat on the surface of the water, and their white flowers rising up here and there like ornamental cups. No wonder the child was delighted.

“Sunny wants a water-lily,” said she, catching the word, though she had never heard it before. “May Sunny have one, two water-lilies? Two water-lilies! Please, mamma?”

This was more easily promised than performed, for, in spite of papa’s skill, the boat always managed to glide either too far off, or too close to, or right on the top of the prettiest flowers; and when snatched at, they always would dive down under water, causing the boat to lurch after them in a way particularly unpleasant. At last, out of about a dozen unsuccessful attempts, papa captured two expanded flowers, and one bud, all with long stalks. They were laid along the seat of the boat, which had not capsized, nor had anybody tumbled out of it,—a thing that mamma considered rather lucky, upon the whole, and insisted on rowing away out of the region of water-lilies.

“Let us go up the canal, then,” said papa, whom his host had already taken there, to show him a very curious feature of the loch.

Leading out of one end of it, and communicating between it and a stream that fed it from the neighbouring glen, was a channel, called “the canal.” Unlike most Highland streams, it was as still as a canal; only it was natural, not artificial. Its depth was so great, that a stick fifteen feet long failed to find the bottom, which, nevertheless, from the exceeding clearness of the water, could be seen quite plain, with the fishes swimming about, and the pebbles, stones, or roots of trees too heavy to float, lying as they had lain, undisturbed, year after year. The banks, instead of shallowing off, went sheer down, as deep as in the middle, so that you could paddle close under the trees that fringed them,—gnarled old oaks, queerly twisted rowans or beeches, and nut-trees with trunks so thick and branches so wide-spreading, that the great-great-grandfathers of the glen must have gone nutting there generations back.

Yet this year they were as full as ever of nuts, the gathering of which frightened mamma nearly as much as the water-lilies. For papa, growing quite excited, would stand up in the boat and pluck at the branches, and would not see that nutting on dry land, and nutting in a boat over fifteen or twenty feet of water, were two very different things. Even the little girl, imitating her elders, made wild snatches at the branches, and it was the greatest relief to mamma’s mind when Sunny turned her attention to cracking her nuts, which her sharp little teeth did to perfection.

“Shall I give you one, mamma? Papa, too?” And she administered them by turns out of her mouth, which, if not the politest, was the most convenient way. At last she began singing a song to herself, “Three little nuts all together! three little nuts all together!” Looking into the little girl’s shut hands, mamma found—what she in all her long life had never found but once before, and that was many, many years ago—a triple nut,—a “lucky” nut; as great a rarity as a four-leaved shamrock.

“Oh, what a prize! will Sunny give it to mamma?” (which she did immediately). “And mamma will put it carefully by, and keep it for Sunny till she is grown a big girl.”

“Sunny is a big girl now; Sunny cracks nuts for papa and mamma.”

Nevertheless, mamma kept the triple nut, as she remembered her own mamma keeping the former one, when she herself was a little girl. When Sunny grows a woman, she will find both.

Besides nuts, there were here and there along the canal-side long trailing brambles, with such huge blackberries on them,—blackberries that seem to take a malicious pleasure in growing where nobody can get at them. Nobody could gather them except out of a boat, and then with difficulty. The best of them had, after all, to be left to the birds.

Oh, what a place this canal must have been for birds in spring! What safe nests might be built in these overhanging trees! what ceaseless songs sung there from morning till night! Now, being September, there were almost none. Dead silence brooded over the sunshiny crags and the motionless loch. When, far up among the hills, there was heard the crack of a gun,—Maurice’s papa’s gun, for it could of course be no other,—the sound, echoed several times over, was quite startling. What had been shot,—a grouse, a snipe, a wild duck? Perhaps it was a roe-deer? Papa was all curiosity; but mamma, who dislikes shooting altogether, either of animals or men, and cannot endure the sight of a gun, even unloaded, was satisfied with hearing it at a distance, and counting its harmless echoes from mountain to mountain.

What mountains they were!—standing in a circle, gray, bare, silent, with their peaks far up into the sky. Some had been climbed by the gentlemen in this shooting-lodge or by Donald, the keeper, but it was hard work, and some had never been climbed at all. The clouds and mists floated over them, and sometimes, perhaps, a stray grouse, or capercailzie, or ptarmigan, paid them a visit, but that was all. They were too steep and bare even for the roe-deer. Yet, oh! how grand they looked, grand and calm, like great giants, whom nothing small and earthly could affect at all.

The mountains were too big, as yet, for Little Sunshine. Her baby eyes did not take them in. She saw them, of course, but she was evidently much more interested in the nuts overhead, and the fishes under water. And when the boat reached “The Bower,” she thought it more amusing still.

“The Bower,” so called, was a curious place, where the canal grew so narrow, and the trees so big, that the overarching boughs met in the middle, forming a natural arbour,—only of water, not land,—under which the boat swept for a good many yards. You had to stoop your head to avoid being caught by the branches, and the ferns and moss on either bank grew so close to your hand, that you could snatch at them as you swept by, which Little Sunshine thought the greatest fun in the world.

“Mamma, let me do it. Please, let Sunny do it her own self.”

To do a thing “all my own self” is always a great attraction to this independent little person, and her mamma allows it whenever possible. Still there are some things which mamma may do, and little people may not, and this was one of them. It was obliged to be forbidden as dangerous, and Little Sunshine clouded over almost to tears. But she never worries her mamma for things, well aware that “No,” means no, and “Yes,” yes; and that neither are subject to alteration. And the boat being speedily rowed out of temptation’s way into the open loch again, she soon found another amusement.

On the loch, besides water-fowl, such as wild ducks, teal, and the like, lived a colony of geese. They had once been tame geese belonging to the farm, but they had emigrated, and turned into wild geese, making their nests wherever they liked, and bringing up their families in freedom and seclusion. As to catching them like ordinary geese, it was hopeless; whenever wanted for the table they had to be shot like game. This catastrophe had not happened lately, and they swam merrily about,—a flock of nine large, white, lively, independent birds, which could be seen far off, sailing about like a fleet of ships on the quiet waters of the loch. They would allow you to row within a reasonable distance of them, just so close and no closer, then off they flew in a body, with a great screeching and flapping of wings,—geese, even wild geese, being rather unwieldy birds.

Their chief haunt was a tiny island just at the mouth of the canal, and there papa rowed, just to have a look at them, for one was to be shot for the Michaelmas dinner. (It never was, by the by, and, for all I know, still sails cheerfully upon its native loch.)

“Oh, the ducks—the ducks!” (Sunny calls all water-birds ducks.) She clapped her hands, and away they flew, right over her head, at once frightening and delighting her; then watched them longingly until they dropped down again, and settled in the farthest corner of the loch.

“Might Sunny go after them? Might Sunny have a dear little duck to play with?”

The hopelessness of which desire might have made her turn melancholy again, only just then appeared, rowing with great energy, bristling with fishing-rods, and crowded with little people as well as “grown-ups,” the big boat. It was so busy that it hardly condescended to notice the little pleasure-boat, with only idle people, sailing about in the sunshine, and doing nothing more useful than catching water-lilies and frightening geese.

Still the little boat greeted the large one with an impertinent hail of “Ship ahoy! what ship’s that?” and took in a cargo of small boys, who, as it was past one o’clock, were wanted home to the nursery dinner. And papa rowed the whole lot of them back to the pier, where everybody was safely landed. Nobody tumbled in, and nobody was drowned,—which mamma thought, on the whole, was a great deal to be thankful for.