52 CAROLINE.

Caroline’s drollery. Eating supper. Plays.

—

high, though it was drawing toward the horizon. The even-
ing was delightful. The grass and the trees were every-
where glittering with the drops of rain which hung upon
them, and the surface of the water was resplendent with
the reflected magnificence of the sky.

But besides the beauty of the evening and of the scenery,
the children enjoyed another very prolific source of plea-
sure while they were eating their supper, in the lively
and amusing conversation with which Caroline enter-
tained them all the time. She was perfectly grave and
sober herself in all that she said, but she made Malleville
and Phonny laugh continually by the drollery of her
remarks, and the singularity and oddity of her im-
aginings. At one time she would pretend that they
were shipwrecked mariners, cast away upon a desolate
island. She was the captain of the vessel, and Phonny
and Malleville her
sailors, while the boat
represented their ship
driven up by the storm
high and dry upon the
shore. At another time
she herself was Robin-
son Crusoe, on the is-
land of Juan Fernan-
dez, Phonny being
her man Friday, and
Maleville the goat;
and while acting in
this capacity she sent
Phonny at one time to
set up an oar upon the

 

TOE SIGNAL