loneliest place imaginable. It was not very deep, not deep enough to drown a man, but it had a gravelly bottom and was always very clear. Also the trees round it grew so thick that they shel5 tered it completely from the wind; so when it did freeze, it generally froze as smooth as a sheet of glass. One day the eldest boy ran in with a countenance of great delight. 66 10 Mother, mother, the lake bears!" (It was rather a compliment to call it a lake, it being only about twenty yards across and forty long.) lake really bears!" "Who says so?" "The 15 "Bill. Bill has been on it for an hour this morning, and has made us two such beautiful slides, he says - an up-slide and a down-slide. May we go to them directly?" 20 The mother hesitated. "You promised, you know," pleaded the children. "Very well, then; only be careful." "And may we slide all day long, and never come home for dinner or anything?" "Yes, if you like. Only Gardener must go with you, and stay all day." This they did not like at all; nor, when Gardener was spoken to, did he. "You bothering children! I wish I wish you may all 5 get a good ducking in the lake! Serve you right for making me lose a day's work, just to look after you little monkeys. I've a great mind to tell your mother I won't do it." He 10 But he did not, being fond of his mistress. was also fond of his work, but he had no notion of play. I think the saying of "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" must have been applied to him, for Gardener, whatever he had been as a boy, was certainly a dull and melancholy 15 The children used to say that if he and idle Bill could have been kneaded into one, and baked in the oven-a very warm oven -they would have come out rather a pleasant person. man. As it was, Gardener was anything but a pleasant 20 person, above all to spend a long day with- and on the ice, where one needs all one's cheerfulness and good-humor to bear pinched fingers and numbed toes, and trips, and tumbles, and various uncomfortablenesses. "He'll growl at us all day long-he'll be a regular spoil-sport!" lamented the children. "Oh! 5 mother, mightn't we go alone?" "No!" said the mother; and her "No" meant no, though she was always very kind. They argued the point no more, but started off, rather downhearted. But soon they regained their 10-spirits, for it was a bright, clear, frosty day; the sun was shining, though not enough to melt the ice, and there was just sufficient frost to lie like a thin sprinkling over the grass, and turn the brown branches into white ones. The little people 15 danced along to keep themselves warm, carrying between them a basket which held their lunch. A very harmless lunch it was, just a large brown loaf and a lump of cheese, and a knife to cut it with. Tossing the basket about in their fun, they man20 aged to tumble the knife out and were having a search for it in the long grass when Gardener came up, grumpily enough. As they went they heard little steps pattering after them. "Perhaps it is the Brownie coming to play with as-I wish he would," whispered the youngest girl to the eldest boy, whose hand she generally held; and then the little pattering steps sounded again, traveling through the snow, but they saw 5 nobody—so they said nothing. compliment (kom'pli ment) Devonshire (Dev'n shēr): a county imaginable (im ăj'i na bl): that could be thought of kneaded (nēd'ed): mixed together like dough melancholy (mel'an kol y): sober, sad neighborhood (nā′ber hood) no notion of play: no interest in play sufficient (suf fish'nt) enough II The children would have liked to go straight to the ice; but Gardener insisted on taking them a mile round, to look at an extraordinary animal which a farmer there had just got sent by his 10 brother in Australia. The two old men stood gossiping so long that the children wearied extremely. Every minute seemed an hour till they got on the ice. |