Milly and Olly

"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 passage 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?"

"Why," said Milly, slowly, "you and father pack up your things, and go away over the sea, and we stay behind with nurse."

"I don't call that a nice something," said Olly, standing still again.

"Oh, mother, are you going away?" said Milly, hanging round her mother's neck.

"Yes, Milly, and so's father, and so's nurse"--and their mother began to laugh.

"So's nurse?" said Milly and Olly together, and then they stopped and opened two pairs of round eyes very wide, and stared at their mother. "Oh, mother, mother, take us too!"

"Why, how should father and I get on, travelling about with a pair of monkeys?" said their mother, catching hold of the two children and lifting them on to her knee; "we should want a cage to keep them in."

"Oh, mother, we'll be ever so good! But where are we going? Oh, do take us to the sea!"

"Yes, the sea! the sea!" shouted Olly, careering round the room again; "we'll have buckets and spades, and we'll paddle and catch crabbies, and wet our clothes, and have funny shoes, just like Cromer. And father'll teach me to swim--he said he would next time."

"No," said Mrs. Norton, for that was the name of Milly's and Oliver's mother. "No, we are not going to the sea this summer. We are going to a place mother loves better than the sea, though perhaps you children mayn't like it quite so well. We're going to the mountains. Uncle Richard has lent father and mother his own nice house among the mountains and we're all going there next week--such a long way in the train, Milly."

"What are mountains?" said Olly, who had scarcely ever seen a hill higher than the church steeple. "They can't be so nice as the sea, mother. Nothing can."

"They're humps, Olly," answered Milly eagerly. "Great, big humps of earth, you know; earth mixed with stone. And they reach up ever so high, up into the sky. And it takes you a whole day to get up to the top of them, and a whole day to get down again. Doesn't it, mother? Fräulein told me all about mountains in my geography. And some mountains have got snow on their tops all year, even in summer, when it's so hot, and we're having strawberries. Will the mountains we're going to, have snow on them?"

"Oh, no. The snow mountains are far away over the sea. But these are English mountains, kind, easy mountains, not too high for you and me to climb up, and covered all over with soft green grass and wild flowers, and tiny sheep with black faces."

"And, mother, is there a garden to Uncle Richard's house, and are there any children there to play with?"

"There's a delightful garden, full of roses, and strawberries and grapes, and everything else that's nice. And it has a baby river all to itself, that runs and jumps and chatters all through the middle of it, so perhaps Olly may have a paddle sometimes, though we aren't going to the sea. And the gardener has got two little children, just about your age, Aunt Mary says: and there are two more at the farm, two dear little girls, who aren't a bit shy, and will like playing with you very much. But who else shall we see there, Milly? Who lives in the mountains too, near Uncle Richard?"

Olly looked puzzled, but Milly thought a minute, and then said quickly, "Aunt Emma, isn't it, mother? Didn't she come here once? I think I remember."

"Yes, she came once, but long ago, when you were quite small. But now we shall see a great deal of her I hope, for she lives just on the other side of the mountain from Uncle Richard's house, in a dear old house, where I spent many, many happy days when I was small. Great-grandpapa and grandmamma were alive then. But now Aunt Emma lives there quite alone. Except for one creature, at least, an old gray poll-parrot, that chatters away, and behaves as if it were quite sensible, and knew all about everything."

"Hasn't she got any pussies, mother?" asked Olly.

"Yes, two I believe; but they don't get on with Polly very well, so they live in the kitchen out of the way--"

"I like pussies better than pollies," said Olly gravely.

"Why, what do you know about pollies, old man?"

"Pollies bite, I know they do. There was a polly bited Francis once."

"Well, and pussies scratch," said Milly.

"No, they don't, not if you're nicey to them," said Olly; who was just then very much in love with a white kitten, and thought there were no creatures so delightful as pussies.

"Well, suppose you don't make up your mind about Aunt Emma's Polly till you've seen her," said Mrs. Norton. "Now sit down on the rug there and let us have a talk."

Down squatted the children on the floor opposite their mother, with their little heads full of plans and their eyes as bright as sparks.