I can write, and hem father's handkerchiefs. Ask nursie."

"But you would like to play to dear father, and to learn all sorts
of pretty hymns to say to him, would you not, my darling! There are
many things you will have to know before you are a woman."

"I don't mean to be a woman ever, I think," observed Flurry; "I like
being a child better. Nursie is a woman, and nursie won't play; she
says she is old and stupid."

A happy inspiration came to me. "If you are good and learn your
lessons, I will play with you," I said, rather timidly; "that is, if
you care for a grown-up playfellow."

I was only seventeen, in spite of my _pronounce_ features, and
I could still enter into the delights of a good drawn battle of
battledore and shuttlecock. Perhaps it was the repressed enthusiasm
of my tone, for I really meant what I said; but Flurry's brief
coldness vanished, and she caught at my hand at once.

"Come and see them," she said; "I did not know you liked dolls, but
you shall have one of your own if you like;" and she led me to a
corner of the nursery where a quantity of dolls in odd costumes and
wonderfully constrained attitudes were arranged round an inverted
basket.

"Joseph and his brethren," whispered Flurry. "I am going to put him
in the pit directly, only I wondered what I should do for the camels
--this is Issachar, and this Gad. Look at Gad's turban."