Sweethearts at Home

of J

anybody's life if you only tell him what number of shoe he wears. Only I am just a little girl, and have neither been

ing out of your pocket when you hang head down

ject into a chapter, though these won't be called "Printed

such things. So it will be rather a change to write about "The

alls Mr. Massa. And once we bribed Mr. Massa to tell us all about when father was young-he was his earliest and dearest friend-though, by his telling, father pounded him shamefully and unmer

a mother, I shan't be. Because, having kept a Diary, I shall only have to

ave to believe it. Oh, just won't my children have a good time! Also Hugh John's. But Sir Toady Lion

e ought

n the top of Thrieve Castle with a stone in one hand and his watch in the other to me

stone in his hand. But the watch was ticking cheerfully away when they picked it up, and it is tha

father's friends so much. But Mr. Massa told us more things that we can cast up to him in time of need than we would ever have wormed out of father himself in a c

hat is not

Our business to get as much fun as we can out of life without getting in the way of the Grown-ups. All their "Don't do this's" and "You mustn't do that's" are just wa

you do "whale" your fellow-pupil, no questions are asked. The only way to be a bad

t coolness in the world. It is his system. And he says every boy is a fool who gives the masters trouble. He means Grown-ups generally. You do certain

is always ready to give it if asked. If not, he keeps it to himself, wraps it about h

e many hundreds of miles with father on his cycle, and now Hugh John and he spend days over glasses of all descriptions,

lots more in foreign languages. Maid Margaret thinks she will go in for botany so as to get these. But I like best just reading books-or br

eing about eighty feet long altogether, is the loveliest place for wet Saturdays-so "mousey," and window-seaty, with big logs burning on a brass fireplace, and the storm pattering above and all about

says, "Get out, Imps! I can't

f Castle Bookworm is, and slip into another part. Best of all is the Old Observatory, where there is a bed in a little ca

et Ursa Major after you, and he will fetch you out of your bed to do it, storming at you all the time. Then maybe

is no more about it. It is like a thunderstorm which you hear sleepily among the hills in the night. All you have to do i

to sharply enough-that is all in the day's work. While for the rest, we live less of the Double Life th

d her. And by and by other people found her out, and did so too. And it

. Only this tale is a "terrible example" for parents and guardians. They put such things, like nasty medicine, in the books we have to r

ng, they had forgotten all about it. Polly mustn't run or romp, nor speak above her b

rch, and there is always the music, which is nice, and the organist's back hair, which isn't-and the sermon is never very long and sometimes interesting. Then for the boys there are the bees booming in the tall windows, and the flies t

se. You couldn't believe it if you had not been ther

sephus, and the other the Pilgrim's Progress. As we knew these by heart, you may guess how cheerful it was. And you had t

ir Toady boldly asserted that he was a true Mahometan, and made a green turban o

en Polly's people threatened to inform hi

issed his fox-terrier, Boss, worse than words can

w all about the chapter. Even if they ticked it in pencil, there was india-rubber in Polly's pocket to rub it out. She played with beads in church-in her muff

was not the square thing-to buy sweets and thus defraud the Church. He is

Growly called upon to erupt (which he does very fierce for five minutes). But not expected to do anything except tell the truth and keep on telling it-not behave like reptiles-and if caught, own up prompt. Say your pr

e was, and told all round the countryside what li

e to complain of us, he was down on his knees worshiping this false image on the front lawn! Awful, wasn't it? But all the same it would have made you laugh till you cried if you had seen him doing kow-tow to this false

Tow to This

ave no "mockery" about such things. But I don't think he got it very bad, bec

doesn't growl. That is a good time to keep away and say nothing, till he has done chewing his paw

that it was quite in vain. Children don't try on things with one another. They know they will be

d never be natural, but all the time had got to-what is

Then, because her people were rich, and she so good, she got lots of money sent her-so much for telling what her place in c

ver ones could work their way up again. And so each alternate Monday Polly Pretend was really top girl for about five minutes. It was on that day she wro

rm-after the examinations, when Polly

e charwomen to steal the school tickets that they stick in prize-books, and

ely from the postman. She burned it, after trying to alter the figures, but, of course, was

ay. The visit was an unhappy time for all of us-except, that is, for Sir Toady, who invented new and horrible forms of idolatry every other day, and scared the immo

at was only to keep the rest of us off. So Hugh John chased the Evil Spirit by the sound, and growle

ut not quite. I do believe that she would have gone and confessed the most innocent of her lies to her parents, if it had no

eople not to understand that Polly's lies had mostly been their own fault. Bu

school-mistresses are just like other

And Miss Gray thought it would be a nice thing to call upon the mother of her pupil. Perhaps she might be able

ky-biddy, fussy, motherly sort of thing, and wears the nicest satiny gowns at dinner-parties. It was

t a few minutes in the drawing-room. Because, you see, Mrs. Pretend was expected in every minute. The maid knew her business, of course;

es. She opened a fine Macaulay, and saw "First Prize for History, Presented t

he center of the room, and more stuck in decorative oake

she did not give Polly away. You see, Miss Gray was a pretty good sort-that is,

id that she could not wait any longer to s

hich she had no control, etc., had caused such a pressure upon Olympia Co

angry. So much so that they determined to start off at

ad happened, and how Miss Gray had been twenty minutes in the drawing-room, a

ther and mother from go

s of her. And her mother said to her father, "I do not wonder at it, dear. It is all

her teacher

erstandi

w, she had. And it was t

ss. For then she pretended and the governess pretended, and instead of getting out of th

hat anot