Part 3 (2/2)

The best fun was in the nursery, where all the clean handkerchiefs and collars and cuffs were on the table. They went puff, puff, all over the floor, just like big snowflakes, and I could hardly help stepping on them.

The bedrooms were not so much fun. So I finished by going to the dining-room, as soon as Ann had gone away, after setting the tea.

n.o.body will believe me when I say that I really _was_ going to put everything tidy again! But I never got so far as being the good wind-fairy. Everything always goes just the wrong way!

First of all, the servants finished their tea sooner than they generally do, and nurse went straight back to the nursery. She might have waited--mightn't she?

And wasn't it unkind of Mrs. Rose to come and call, and to have to be shown into the drawing-room? She is our doctor's sister, and she is so stiff and white that we call her Mrs. _Prim_rose. That's _her_ nickname.

But it never p.r.i.c.ks _her_, because she never hears it.

I wonder if nurse is right when she says, ”It is going against the Catechism to make nicknames for grown-up people”?

Well! I didn't know that if you blew a flame with the bellows it would make it run about everywhere. Did you?

I was only trying to make the spirit-lamp burn faster under the kettle.

I was just beginning to be the _good_ wind-fairy then. And the silly flame ran all over the table-cloth, and there was such a flare-up!

I _was_ frightened.

The tea-cosy was burnt. So was the table-cloth. Ann had 'stericks. I think that is what nurse called them. Mrs. Primrose came running in with mother from the drawing-room, and she fainted.

That was all!

At least, I was sent to bed, and now they call me Matty. Don't you think it is unkind of them? Ginevra is such a pretty name too!

I didn't _mean_ to be naughty. And I do wish mother would make me understand all about it; but Teddie is ill, and, of course, she can't leave him until he's better. I shall have to wait, I suppose. But I can't be happy again until I have had a nice talk with mother. She makes everything so _understand-ible_.

What did nurse mean when she said, the other day, ”There's one comfort; Miss Ginevra's character is still unformed”?

[Printer's decoration]

_GULL'S ”TWINSES.”_

”Children of wealth or want, to each is given One spot of green, and all the blue of heaven!”

”Mind! mind! I say, Tom, you're frizzing that 'erring black!”

”I ain't.”

”My eyes! don't it smell fine? Oh! I do wish father'd come. He's allus a long time when the supper's 'ot;” and Bob, as he spoke, heaved a sigh of such prodigious depth that it might have come from his boots--if he had possessed any, poor little man!

These two small boys, Tom and Bob Gull, were six years old.

”We is only twinses,” Bob would say.

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