Milly and Olly | Page 5

beyond the garden, she was afraid of earwigs. I
am even ashamed to say she was afraid of spiders. Once she ran away
as if a lion were behind her from a white kitten that pulled her dress
with its frolicsome paws to make her play with it; but that, Milly would
tell you, was "when I was little," and she was quite sure she was a good
deal braver now.
Now what am I to tell you about Olly?
Olly was just a round ball of fun and mischief. He had brown hair,
brown eyes, a brown face, and brown hands. He was always touching
and meddling with everything, indoors and out, to see what was inside
it, or what it was made of. He liked teasing Milly, he liked his walks,
he liked his sleep in the morning, he liked his dinner, he liked his tea,
he liked everything in the world, except learning to read, and that he
hated. He could only do one thing besides mischief. He could sing all
kinds of tunes--quick tunes, slow tunes, and merry tunes. He had been
able to sing tunes ever since he was quite a tiny baby, and his father
and mother often talked together of how, in about a year, he should be
taught to play on the piano, or perhaps on the violin, if he liked it better.
You might hear his sharp, shrill little voice, singing about the house
and the garden all day long. John the gardener called it "squealin'," and

told Olly his songs were "capital good" for frightening away the birds.
Now, perhaps, you know a little more about Milly and Olly than you
did when I began to tell you about them, and it is time you should hear
of what happened to them on that wonderful journey of theirs up to the
mountains.
First of all came the packing up. Milly could not make up her mind
about her dolls; she had three--Rose, Mattie, and Katie--but Rose's
frocks were very dirty, Mattie had a leg broken, and Katie's paint had
been all washed off one wet night, when Olly left her out on the lawn.
Now which of these was the tidiest and most respectable doll to take
out on a visit? Milly did not know how to settle it.
[Illustration: "'I can't do without my toys, Nana'"]
"I think, Nana," she said at last to her nurse, who was packing the
children's trunk, "I will take Katie. Mother always sends us away when
we get white faces to make us look nice and red again; so, perhaps, if I
take Katie her colour will come back too, you know."
"Perhaps it will, Miss Milly," said nurse, laughing; "anyhow, you had
better give me the doll you want directly, for it is time I packed all the
toys now. Now, Master Olly, you know I can't let you take all those
things."
For there was Olly dragging along his wheelbarrow heaped up with
toys with one hand, and his cart and horse with a box of bricks standing
up in it with the other. He would not listen to what Milly said about it,
and he would scarcely listen to nurse now.
"I can't do without my toys, Nana. I must do mischief if you won't let
me take all my toys; I can't help it."
"I haven't got room for half those, Master Olly, and you'll have ever so
many new things to play with when we get to Ravensnest."
"There'll be the new children, Olly," said Milly, "and the little rivers

and all the funny new flowers."
"Those aren't toys," said Olly, looking ready to cry. "I don't know
nothing about them."
"Now," said nurse, making a place in the box, "bring me your bricks
and your big ball, and your picture-books. There, that's all I can spare
you."
"Wait one minute," said Olly, rushing off; and just then Mrs. Norton
called nurse away to speak to her in the drawing-room. When nurse
came back she saw nobody in the nursery. Milly had gone out in the
garden, Olly was nowhere to be seen. And who had shut down the
trunk, which was open when she left it? Me-ow, sounded very softly
from somewhere close by.
"Why--Spot! Spot!" called nurse.
Me-ow, Me-ow, came again; a sad choky little mew, right from the
middle of the children's trunk. "Master Olly and his tricks again," said
nurse, running to the box and opening it. There, on the top, lay a
quantity of frocks that nurse had left folded up on the floor, thrown in
anyhow, with some toys scattered among them, and the frocks and toys
were all dancing up and down as if they were bewitched. Nurse took
out the frocks, and