and then great-grandmamma always carried about with her a wonderful
blue-silk bag full of treasures, which we used to be allowed to turn out
whenever any of us had been quite good at our lessons for a whole week."

"Mother has a bag like that," said Milly; "it has lots of little toys in
it that father had when he was a little boy. She lets us look at it on
our birthdays. Can you tell stories, Aunt Emma?"

"Tell us about old Mother Quiverquake," cried Olly, running up and
climbing on his aunt's knee.

"Oh dear, no!" said Aunt Emma; "it's much too fine to-day for
stories--indoors, at any rate. Wait till we get a real wet day, and then
we'll see. After dinner to-day, what do you think we're going to do?
Suppose we have a row on the lake to get water-lilies, and suppose we
take a kettle and make ourselves some tea on the other side of the lake.
What would you say to that, Master Olly?"

The children began to dance about with delight at the idea of a row and
a picnic both together, when suddenly there was a knock at the door, and
when Aunt Emma said, "Come in!" what do you think appeared? Why, a great
green cage, carried by a servant, and in it a gray parrot, swinging
about from side to side, and cocking his head wickedly, first over one
shoulder and then over the other.

"Now, children," said Aunt Emma, while the children stood quite still
with surprise, "let me introduce you to my old friend, Mr. Poll Parrot.
Perhaps you thought I lived all alone in this big house. Not at all.
Here is somebody who talks to me when I talk to him, who sings and
chatters and whistles and cheers me up wonderfully in the winter