Part 14 (2/2)
Ah! Annie, how easy it is to make a promise! A hearty kiss sealed it; then Mrs. Roby drove away in her carriage, and so our story begins.
Mamma gone out to spend the day, Annie left at home to take care of Dorrie, while nurse was cleaning the nurseries. Annie was six, Ralph, her brother, seven, Dorrie four, and the ”funniest little puppet in all England,” so Ralph said.
”Annie, I _do fink_ Mab could walk almost by herself with these boots on,” said Dorrie, she and Annie back in the dining-room, Dorrie busy with a family of three dolls, Annie deep in a new story-book.
The wee mamma had just contrived to put a pair of new boots, of Annie's manufacturing, on the by no means elegant feet of shock-headed Mab. Next came the suggestion from silver-tongued Dorrie, as Annie was silent--
”I _fink_ Mab and Alice ought to go for a walk. Baby is just gone to sleep;” and the mite was laid carefully among the sofa cus.h.i.+ons.
”Very well.” Down went the book; with that promise just spoken, Annie could not well do other than go this walk with her little sister, yet in a listless, half-hearted way.
”You take the one hand, I the other;” so prattled Dorrie. ”Oh! see her feet!” and certainly Miss Mab did trip it out right nimbly down to the gate. How Dorrie laughed, watching her.
Just outside the gate they met Ralph.
”What are you laughing at, old lady?” he asked.
”Because Mab can almost walk by herself,” she told him.
”Then she'll be running away one of these days,” said the boy.
”Oh! she wouldn't--she wouldn't run away from me, because I love her so;” and Dorrie stooped and gave her a sounding kiss.
”You just wait and see,” was Ralph's answer; then he went on, and the sisters pursued their walk.
Back again, then dinner for the children, a long sleep for the dollies, and next, the golden afternoon to be lived through and enjoyed.
”Annie!” cried Dorrie, coming down from the nursery, and peering in at the dining-room, where Annie was now reading with a will, deep in the wildest tragedy of the story, where a dog, a gypsy, and a certain Sophia were playing their parts in real story-book fas.h.i.+on. ”Annie!” so silvery-tongued Dorrie spoke her name again.
”Well, what?” was the unladylike answer from Annie.
”I _fink_ the dollies want to go out in their mail-cart.”
”Well, take them.”
”But I want you to come.”
”I can't.”
”Why not?”
”Because I can't; run away.”
”Must I go alone?” asked Dorrie sadly.
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