A Christmas Posy Part 18

Then she cried a little more--and I did too. And papa kissed us, and we went on home, rather sadly of course, but still feeling, in a good way, glad too. And papa told it all to mamma, so that she kissed us _very_ nicely when she said good-night, and called us her poor darlings.

You may think that is the end. But it isn't. The end is lovely.

About a week after that day, one afternoon we heard that a lady and gentleman with a big dog had come to call on papa and mamma. We were afraid it was Bruno, and the people belonging to him, and as we didn't want to see him again, we were just going to run out and hide in the garden for fear we should be sent for, when papa himself came calling for us.

"Persis. Archie." And we dared not run away.

"Papa," we said, "we don't want to come if it is Bruno."

"It is Bruno," he said; "but, all the same, you must come. You must trust me."

We had to go into the drawing-room. There was the girl talking quite nicely to mamma, and a gentleman with her, who we saw was her brother, and--there was Bruno! We tried not to look at him, while we shook hands.

How silly we were!

"Children," said papa, "this young lady has come to say something which will please you very much. She finds, quite unexpectedly, that she cannot keep her dog, as she and Mr. Riverton"--papa made a little bow to the brother--"are going abroad. Miss Riverton wants a good home for her dog. Do you think we could promise him one?"

We could scarcely speak. It seemed too good to be true.

"Would he be ours for always?" I asked, and the young lady said, "Yes, of course. I wouldn't want to give you the pain of parting with him _twice_, you poor children."

"And mamma says we may?" we asked. And mamma nodded. Then Persis had a nice thought.

"Aren't you very sorry?" she asked the girl. But _she_ only smiled. "No, I can't say I am," she said, "because I know he'll be very happy with you. And though I love him very much, I love my brother better, and I'm _very_ glad to go with him instead of being left behind, even with Rollo."

We _quite_ liked her then. Her face was so nice. And she kissed us when she went away. Persis liked it, and I didn't mind.

Our Bruno has been with us ever since, and we love him more and more. He is quite happy, even in London, for he has a nice home in the stables, and we take him a walk every day, and he comes very often into the house. And in the country, where we now go for much longer every year, he is always with us.

The girl writes to us sometimes, and we answer, and tell her about Bruno. She is coming to see him next year, when they come back to England. She calls him "Rollo," but we like "Bruno" best, and _he_ doesn't mind, the dear old fellow.

THE BLUE DWARFS:

AN ADVENTURE IN THuRINGEN

"And then on the top of the Caldon Low There was no one left but me."

MARY HOWITT.

"I LIKED the blue dwarfs the best--far, far the best of anything," said Olive.

"'The blue dwarfs!'" repeated Rex. "What _do_ you mean? Why can't you say what you mean plainly? Girls have such a stupid way of talking!"

"What can be plainer than _the blue dwarfs_?" said Olive rather snappishly, though, it must be allowed, with some reason. "We were talking about the things we liked best at the china place. _You_ said the stags' heads and the inkstands, and _I_ say the blue dwarfs."

"But I didn't see any dwarfs," persisted Rex.

"Well, I can't help it if you didn't. You had just as much chance of seeing them as I had. They were in a corner by themselves--little figures about two inches high, all with blue coats on. There were about twelve of them, all different, but all little dwarfs or gnomes. One was sitting on a barrel, one was turning head-over-heels, one was cuddling his knees--all funny ways like that. Oh, they were lovely!"

"I wish I had seen them better," said Rex regretfully. "I do remember seeing a tray full of little blue-looking dolls, but I didn't notice what they were."

Olive did not at once answer. Her eyes were fixed on something she saw pa.s.sing before the window. It was a very, very little man. He was not exactly hump-backed, but his figure was somewhat deformed, and he was so small that but for the sight of his rather wizened old face one could hardly have believed he was a full-grown man. His eyes were bright and beady-looking, like those of a good-natured little weasel, if there be such a thing, and his face lighted up with a smile as he caught sight of the two, to him, strange-looking children at the open window of the little village inn.

"Guten Tag," he said, nodding to them; and "Guten Tag," replied the children, as they had learnt to do by this time to everybody they met.

For in these remote villages it would be thought the greatest breach of courtesy to pa.s.s any one without this friendly greeting.

Rex drew a long breath when the dwarf had pa.s.sed.

"Olive----" he began, but Olive interrupted him.

"Rex," she said eagerly, "that's _exactly_ like them--like the blue dwarfs, I mean. Only, of course, their faces were prettier--nice little china faces, rather crumply looking, but quite nice; and then their coats were such a pretty nice blue. I think," she went on consideringly--"I think, if I had that little man and washed his face _very_ well, and got him a bright blue coat, he would look just like one of the blue dwarfs grown big."

Rex looked at Olive with a queer expression.

"Olive," he said in rather an awe-struck tone; "Olive, do you think perhaps they're _real_? Do you think perhaps somewhere in this country--in those queer dark woods, perhaps--that there are real blue dwarfs, and that somebody must have seen them and made the little china ones like them? Perhaps," and his voice dropped and grew still more solemn; "_perhaps_, Olive, that little man's one of them, and they may have to take off their blue coats when they're walking about. Do you know, I think it's a little, just a very little frightening? Don't you, Olive?"

"No, of course I don't," said Olive, and, to do her justice, her rather sharp answer was meant as much to rea.s.sure her little brother as to express any feeling of impatience. Rex was quite a little fellow, only eight, and Olive, who was nearly twelve, remembered, that when she was as little as that, she used sometimes to feel frightened about things which she now couldn't see anything the least frightening in. And she remembered how once or twice some of her big cousins had laughed at her, and amused themselves by telling her all sorts of nonsense, which still seemed terrible to her when she was alone in her room in the dark at night. "Of course there's nothing frightening in it," she said. "It would be rather a funny idea, I think. Of course it can't be, you know, Rex. There are no dwarfs, and gnomes, and fairies now."

"But that little man was a dwarf," said Rex.

"Yes, but a dwarf needn't be a fairy sort of person," explained Olive.

"He's just a common little man, only he's never grown as big as other people. Perhaps he had a bad fall when he was a baby--that might stop his growing."

"Would it?" said Rex. "I didn't know that. I hope I hadn't a bad fall when I was a baby. Everybody says I'm very small for my age." And Rex looked with concern at his short but st.u.r.dy legs.

Olive laughed outright.

"Oh, Rex, what a funny boy you are! No, certainly, you are not a dwarf.

You're as straight and strong as you can be."

"Well, but," said Rex, returning to the first subject, "I do think it's very queer about that little dwarf man coming up the street just as you were telling me about the blue dwarfs. And he _did_ look at us in a funny way, Olive, whatever you say, just as if he had heard what we were talking about."

"All the people look at us in a funny way here," said Olive. "We must look very queer to them. Your sailor suit, Rex, and my 'Bolero' hat must look to them quite as queer as the women's purple skirts, with bright green ap.r.o.ns, look to us."

"Or the bullock-carts," said Rex. "Do you remember how queer we thought them at first? _Now_ we've got quite used to seeing queer things, haven't we, Olive? Oh! now do look there--at the top of the street--there, Olive, did you _ever_ see such a load as that woman is carrying in the basket on her back? Why, it's as big as a house!"

He seemed to have forgotten about the dwarfs, and Olive was rather glad of it. These two children were travelling with their uncle and aunt in a rather out-of-the-way part of Germany. Out-of-the-way, that is to say, to most of the regular summer tourists from other countries, who prefer going where they are more sure of finding the comforts and luxuries they are accustomed to at home. But it was by no means out-of-the-way in the sense of being dull or deserted. It is a very busy part of the world indeed. You would be amazed if I were to tell you some of the beautiful things that are made in these bare homely little German cottages. For all about in the neighbourhood there are great manufactories and warehouses for china and gla.s.s, and many other things; and some parts of the work are done by the people at home in their own houses. The morning of the day of which I am telling you had been spent by the children and their friends in visiting a very large china manufactory, and their heads were full of the pretty and wonderful things they had seen.

And now they were waiting in the best parlour of the village inn while their uncle arranged about a carriage to take them all on to the small town where they were to stay a few days. Their aunt was tired, and was resting a little on the sofa, and they had planted themselves on the broad window-sill, and were looking out with amus.e.m.e.nt at all that pa.s.sed.

"What have you two been chattering about all this time?" said their aunt, suddenly looking up. "I think I must have been asleep a little, but I have heard your voices going on like two birds twittering."

"Have we disturbed you, Auntie?" asked Olive, with concern.

"Oh no, not a bit; but come here and tell me what you have been talking about."

Instantly Rex's mind went back to the dwarfs.