168 BEYOND THE BLUE MOUNTAINS.

“It’s good to feel the rod,’ he began. “ You heard me singing
that when you came up to the door, didn’t you, little man?”

“JT did,’ said Buttercup. “It was a dreadful, dreadful song!
I hope you won't sing it again, it frightened me so fearfully.”

“Ha! ha! Dll act it next: perhaps you will lke that better;
but come to the fire first—I see you are nearly frozen. You are
not accustomed to our bracing weather; come and warm your
hands by the blaze. JI never punish anyone before six in the
morning, and it isn’t more than five o’clock now. You have been
all night coming to me, haven’t you?”

“Tt seems to me,” replied Buttercup, “that I have been a year
coming to you; I thought I never could have got up the hill.
I couldn’t have come at all but for Mrs. Discipline.”

“Ah! she helped you, then: that was very good-natured and
unusual of her. You must have done something to please her
very much.”

“JT am sure I didn’t.”

“Don’t contradict me, child! I say you must have done |
something to please her extremely. I wonder if you met that
little imp Featherpate ?”

“A little boy dressed in blue and silver?” said Buttercup.
“Yes, I met hin.”

“Ha! ha! And he asked you to play with him in his
marble halls ?”

“He did.”

“And he told you that you might come to me up the back
stairs P”’

“ Yes, he told me that, too.”

“Then how is it that you didn’t come to me up the back
stairs? You are wet; you are cold; you have been through a lot
of snow and ice. How is it that you didn’t do what Featherpate
asked ? ”

“T heard someone laughing up in the air,” said Buttercup,
“and I—I thought of mother, and of Primrose, and I—I was
frightened. I had been with the Green Lady, and I remembered this