Part 1 (1/2)
Milly and Olly.
by Mrs. Humphry Ward.
PREFACE
After many years this little book is once more to see the light. The children for whom it was written are long since grown up. But perhaps the pleasure they once took in it may still be felt by some of the Millys and Ollys of to-day. Up in the dear mountain country which it describes, the becks are still sparkling; ”Brownholme” still spreads its green steeps and ferny hollows under rain and sun; the tiny trout still leap in its tiny streams; and Fairfield, in its n.o.ble curve, still girdles the deep valley where these children played: the valley of Wordsworth and Arnold--the valley where Arnold's poet-son rambled as a boy--where, for me, the shy and pa.s.sionate ghost of Charlotte Bronte still haunts the open door-way of Fox How--where poetry and generous life and ranging thought still dwell, and bring their benediction to the pa.s.sers-by. ”Aunt Emma” in her beautiful home, unchanged but for its vacant chairs, is now as she ever was, the friend of old and young; and the children of to-day still press to her side as their elders did before them. The parrot alas! is gone where parrots may; but amid the voices that breathe around Fox How--the voices of seventy years--his mimic speech is still remembered by the children who teased and loved him. For love, while love lasts, gives life to all things small and great; and in those who have once felt it, the love of the Fairfield valley, of the gray stone house that fronts the fells, and of them that dwell therein, is ”not Time's fool--”
”Or bends with the remover to remove.”
MARY A. WARD.
September 18, 1907.
CHAPTER I
MAKING PLANS
”Milly, come down! come down directly! Mother wants you. Do make haste!”
”I'm just coming, Olly. Don't stamp so. Nurse is tying my sash.”
But Master Olly went on stamping, and jumping up and down stairs, as his way was when he was very much excited, till Milly appeared. Presently down she came, a sober fair-haired little maiden, with blue eyes and a turn-up nose, and a mouth that was generally rather solemn-looking, though it could laugh merrily enough when it tried. Milly was six years old. She looked older than six. At any rate she looked a great deal older than Olly, who was nearly five; and you will soon find out that she was a good deal more than a year and a half wiser.
”What's the matter, Olly? What made you shout so?”
”Oh, come along, come along;” said the little boy, pulling at his sister's hand to make her run. ”Mother wants to tell us something, and she says it's a nice something, and I kissed her like anyfing! but she wouldn't tell me without you.”
Then the two children set off running, and they flew down a long pa.s.sage to the drawing-room, and were soon scrambling about a lady who was sitting working by the window.
”Well, monkeys, don't choke me before I tell you my nice something. Sit on my knee Olly. Now, Milly, guess--what have father and I just been talking about?”
”Sending Olly to school, perhaps,” said Milly. ”I heard Uncle Richard talking about it yesterday.”
”That wouldn't be such a nice something,” said Olly, making a long face.
”I wouldn't like it--not a bit. Boys don't never like going to school. I want to learn my lessons with mother.”
”I know a little boy that doesn't like learning lessons with mother very much,” said the lady, laughing. ”But my nice something isn't sending Olly to school, Milly. You're quite wrong--so try again.”
”Oh, mother! is it a strawberry tea?” cried Milly. ”The strawberries are just ripe, I know. Gardener told nurse so this morning. And we can have tea on the lawn, and ask Jacky and Francis!”
”Oh, jolly!” said Oliver, jumping off his mother's knee and beginning to dance about. ”And we'll gather them ourselves--won't you let us, mother?”
”But it isn't a strawberry tea even,” said his mother. ”Now, look here, children, what have I got here?”
”It's a map--a map of England,” said Milly, looking very wise. Milly had just begun to learn geography, and thought she knew all about maps.
”Well, and what happens when father and I look at maps in the summertime?”