Two Little Travellers / A Story for Girls

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ich Darby had coaxed from his father and always carried in his pocket. Yet the sunshine was so bright and warm, the birds were singing so joyously in the thickets, the rooks cawed so loudly as they wheeled a

round which children loved to play or linger silently, watching the sleek dun mice that darted so swiftly hither and thither, planning for themselves such glorious games in and out and round about their well-stocked store-houses amongst the crisp, rustling corn. Red-cheeked apples, dark-skinned winter pears ripened slowly on the orchard trees. Big bronze plums and late Victorias mellowed against t

indeed-as close as they could come: for Darby was bunched up on the bench, legs and all, with his head tucked under his father's elbow; while Joan was fol

e there was nothing to say, but because there were so many things they wanted to speak about, and yet the words would not come. For on the morrow, early in the morning, at day-dawn even, when the birds should be yet only half awake in their nests, while Darby and Joan should be still sleeping in their cribs disturbed by neither dream nor fear, their father was to leave them. He must be up and a

arby was not quite seven, with thick, short brown hair and great gray eyes. Joan was five. Her hair was long and curly; it had a funny trick of falling over her face in golden tangles, from which her eyes, velvety as the heart of a

t for fun, because they were such devoted chums; and after a time nearly every one called them by these names, even their mother. Only grannie, who was very much of an in

kindly nurse, seemed always hushing to sleep and rarely permitted the others to touch. Already Joan had ceased to remember her mother, except at odd times, and i

e pond behind the barrack wall quite early after breakfast-but inside the house it was

awing a low chair close to the window, together they sat there until from the fleckless blue of the frosty sky the little stars shone out one by one, twinkling soft

er that meant. They had dwelt in different places, too, during that time; because when the regiment moved the officers also moved, and Captain Dene kept his motherless children as constantly with him as it was possible to do. Recently, however, it had become no longer possible-quite impossible, in fact-for Captain Dene's company was under orders for active servic

with Perry their nurse, to Firgrove, where they were to remain during his ab

rhood around their country home), were sisters of Captain Dene's mother. They were not really old at all, although Aunt Catharine's thick black hair was shaded by a lace cap, and in Auntie Alice

nd kind she was at heart, Captain Dene wondered somewhat anxiously how Darby's unbroken spirit would bear the curb of such strict, stern rule. But there was Auntie Alice as well, and Captain Dene smiled as he remembered how she had petted and indulged him in his juvenile days. The aunts between them, like John Gilpin'