Page:Stories told to a child.djvu/22

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THE GRANDMOTHER'S SHOE.

same purpose, and we both set to work to learn our verses with great diligence and gravity.

For some time we persevered, but it was a very warm evening, which, in addition to our being children, was, perhaps, the reason why, at last, we began to yawn, and to fidget, and then to compare notes as to how much we had each learned.

Lucy's bean and pencils had gone back into her pocket, but her buttons lay still in a shining row. We bent our eyes again upon our books—one button went into Lucy's pocket. Then we took a rest, and watched how far the little wafts of wind were floating in the leaves; a great red leaf was following two delicate white ones; it seemed to pursue them; it was a lion running after two lambs; now they lay still, and the lion was watching his prey; now they were borne a little farther; now the lion was just upon them, in another instant they would be overtaken. Lucy could not bear to see the catastrophe that her own imagination had suggested, and darted across the room to rescue the two white lambs; then I related to her Mrs. Cameron's story of 'The Two Lambs,' and by the time it was finished we had so far forgotten ourselves that we went on talking and chattering as if the Bibles had not been lying open on our knees, and as if it had not been Sunday evening, and as if we had neither of us been taught any better.

Oblivious also that there was such a person as a grandmother in the world, we had been talking about my blue sash, and Lucy wished she had one like it. We talked about Lucy's lessons, and I wished I was a Friend, that I might escape from learning music. We

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