Page:Orange Grove.djvu/154

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

for a few days, until her mother should recover her usual health.

"Would you like to come and live with the lady?" said Walter to her as she surveyed them all with eager curiosity, seated in Rosalind's lap.

"No, dess not, mama 'll want her 'ittle dirl," lisped the little one.

"What would you do if you should lose your mother? Who would feed and take care of you," asked Ernest as she bent forward to grasp his watch key.

"Mama says he who takes care of the 'avens when they ky, will feed me too."

"What do you have to play with at home, dolls and toys?"

"I'se dot a 'ittle pussy."

"What do you give her to eat?"

"We don't have anything to dive her to eat, she catches her own meat."

Saying this she jumped down to look at the pictures and other curiosities that met her eyes, appearing as much at home as if reared in a palace. She gained their affections so much that it was with great reluctance they parted with her, and Mrs. Claremont would gladly have kept her, if for no other reason than to awaken the interest of Rosalind in some object, who manifested much of her old enthusiasm in replenishing her scant wardrobe and listening to her childish prattle.

This was only one of many instances of a similar character that came under Mrs. Claremont's observation during that winter. There was a great deal of