Terry | Page 9

so enchanting coming out of your sleeves. And if it hadn't been for your spectacles--Now, tell me a story, Nancy, till it is time to go to Gran'ma."
Terry was so true to her word, did so much reading and stitching and searching about for little things that were lost, that Granny and Nancy agreed to think her real conversion had begun through the breaking of the spectacles. For Nancy had allowed Terry to confess to having broken the glasses, though she would not have dear old Madam disturbed by a description of the pranks with the dog. So long as Nursey had to go groping about as if in the dark, putting her nose to the carpet in search of the dressing-comb she had dropped out of her hand, feeling all over the pin-cushion for a pin, and shaking out the newspaper with an expression on her face which told that it was a perfectly blank sheet to her: while this state of things went on, Terry had no time to think of fresh adventures, so eager was she to come to Nursey's relief with her sharp young eyes and her quick little fingers.
However, a more thorough relief was at hand, and it happened in this way.
Walsh, the old steward at Trimleston, was the same age as Nancy, and the same kind of spectacles suited him. He sometimes went a journey to a town about thirty miles away to pay bills for Madam, and to order things that were wanted about the place. Granny suddenly discovered that he might as well take the journey now as wait for the spring. She gave him a long list of matters to be attended to for her, and then she said:
"And you had better go to the optician's, Walsh, and choose a pair of spectacles to suit yourself, and bring them to me for Nurse Nancy."
As soon as Terry saw Nursey's keen brown eyes looking at her through the familiar little glass windows once more, she felt her remorse slip away from her, and her liberty return.
"Nursey is able to take care of herself now," she thought, "and I have nothing to do. I wish I cared about reading, but I don't. I like people to tell me stories, but nobody has more than a few, and you get to know them all off by heart. The books always say such a lot between the happening parts, and if you skip too much you lose part of the story. The story people all sit down and fold their hands, and wait till the close thick pages of prosy prosy are over, and when they get up again and go on they have forgotten their parts. Pappy says I shall like reading when I'm older; but I'm not older, and I don't like it. I just like to be doing something, and oh, dear, there is nothing to do!"
Terry was sitting at the nursery fire waiting to be summoned to Granny's sitting-room. She had on her pretty white frock, her gold curls were all brushed up into a thousand shining rings, and her blue silk work-bag was hanging by its ribbons from her arms. She had been extremely good and quiet all day, and she was intending to behave nicely to Gran'ma during the evening. She knew exactly all that would happen. There would be a good tea; oh, yes, Granny did give such good teas, dear old Gran'ma! And then Terry would sit on a stool beside her, and embroider a letter on one of Granny's new cambric pocket-handkerchiefs. After that Terry would read aloud, poetry such as Gran'ma liked, and Terry did not much object to that, for she loved musical rhythm, only Granny always chose and marked the pieces, and Terry would rather have tossed over the leaves till she found a poem that she could make a favourite of for herself. She hoped it would be Longfellow to-night. She liked that one:
"A little face at the window Peers out into the night".
Oh, yes; she would be as good as good! And Terry heaved a long-drawn sigh.
"Turly," she said suddenly, "do you never get tired lying flat on the floor, playing with soldiers and bricks, and things?"
"No," said Turly, "I've done such a day's work. I've built a whole city of streets out of this one brick-box."
"You ridiculous boy! The box only holds enough bricks to build one house with."
"I know that," said Turly placidly. "I build one house at a time, and I count the houses I've built till I know there is a street."
"Oh, you silly! You are building the same house every time, and taking it down again. How can you be so baby as to call that building a street."
"No matter," said Turly, "I have the street