great gape.

"That's right," said Grannie, "now I'll tuck you up and lower the
blinds, and you'll have a nice little nap till tea-time."

Mollie closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but sleep would not come.
She missed her morning walk and the fresh air of out-of-doors, so
she gave it up, opened her eyes again, and lay wakefully thinking of
home and Mother, Dick and Jean, and school. The big clock on the
mantelpiece seemed to go very, very slowly, its tick loud and
deliberate, as though it would say: "Don't think you are going to
get off one single minute--sixty minutes to the hour you have to
live through, and there are still two hours till tea-time." The rain
splashed against the window, the wind moaned through the tree-tops,
and the room got steadily darker.

"Oh dear!" Mollie whispered to herself, "what _can_ I do to make the
time pass?"

She sat up and looked round, and her eyes fell upon the last of the
photograph-albums--the one she had yawned over. She picked it up,
propped it on her knees, and, lying back against the cushions,
turned the pages over. These were all children, prim children with
tidy hair and solemn faces. Mollie stopped at the picture of a girl
dressed in a wide-skirted, sprigged-muslin frock. Her hair fell in
plump curls from beneath a broad-brimmed hat with long ribbons
floating over one shoulder. Her legs were very conspicuous in white
stockings and funny boots with tassels dangling on their fronts.

"I expect this is how Ellen Montgomery looked in _The Wide, Wide