Naughty Miss Bunny | Page 2

to look after her
daughter, and in a few days the governess arrived, and Bunny was set
down to learn to read and write.

This was a great change for the neglected child, and had her teacher
been a sensible person Bunny would doubtless have become a good
little girl in time. But unfortunately the governess was very foolish, and
thought it much easier to allow her pupil to have her own way than to
take the trouble to make her do what was right, and so instead of doing
the child good she did her harm, and Bunny became more and more
naughty every day.
This was in June, and as London grew very hot and dusty, Mrs.
Dashwood declared they must all go away to the country, and her
husband, who wished them to have a nice holiday, went off at once and
took a beautiful house at Scarborough.
Bunny was enchanted, and made up her mind to have great fun at the
seaside, and as the very day before they left town, her governess was
obliged to leave in a great hurry on account of a death in her family, the
little girl made up her mind that she was going to have perfect freedom
to do exactly what she liked and to play every day upon the sea-beach.
Sophie did not trouble her much except when she was cross, and so
Bunny set off to Scarborough in very high spirits.
The house her papa had taken for them was a pretty rambling old place,
standing on a height just above the sea, and surrounded by spreading
trees and large gardens full of sweet-scented flowers. A most charming
spot indeed, and to the little girl from hot dusty London it seemed a
perfect paradise.
The first days in the country passed away very happily, and Bunny was
not as wild as might have been expected by those who knew her, when
one day, as she ran through the hall, she stopped in astonishment before
a large trunk, and cried out to the butler, who was standing near, "Who
does that belong to, Ashton? Has a visitor come to stay with us?"
"A visitor, miss? No, a new governess, miss--she's just gone in to speak
to your mama;" and he hurried away to his pantry.
"Nasty thing!" cried Bunny, stamping her foot and growing very red
and angry. Just when I thought I was going to be happy all by myself!

But I'll be so naughty, and so troublesome, that she'll soon go away. I'll
be ten times as hard to manage as I was before. She'll not get hold of
me to-night any way, and scampering off into the garden she hid herself
among the trees.
But the new governess, Miss Kerr, was a very different person from the
last, and resolved to do her best to make her little pupil a good
well-behaved child. She was a kind, warm-hearted girl, who had a great
many small brothers and sisters of her own, and she never doubted that
in a short time Bunny would become as good and obedient as they were.
She soon found, however, that the task was not as easy as she had
fancied, and when she had been a few days at Holly Lodge she began to
fear that it would be a very long time before her lectures and advice
would have the smallest effect upon the wayward little child.
She had now been a whole week in charge of the girl, and she feared
that Bunny would never learn to love her.
About half an hour before our story begins, Bunny and her governess
had been seated on the lawn together. Mrs. Dashwood sent to ask Miss
Kerr to go to her for a few moments, and that young lady had hastened
into the house, leaving her little charge upon the grass with her book.
"Do not stir from here till I return, Bunny," she said; "you can go over
that little lesson again, and I shall not be long."
But as time went on and she did not return the child grew restless, and
feeling very tired of sitting still, began to look about to see what there
was for her to do.
"Governesses are great bothers," she grumbled to herself as she rolled
about on the grass. "And now as Miss Kerr does not seem to be coming
back, I think I will have a climb up that tree--it looks so easy I'm sure I
could go up ever so high. There's nobody looking, so I'll just see if I
can go right away up--as high as that little bird up there."
Bunny was very quick in her movements, and a minute later her white
frock and blue sash were fluttering