BEATRICE AND LOTTIE.

BEATRICE was out in the garden playing all by herself, and
feeling very lonely. There were so few games that she could
play. If she played at “shops” it was not much fun to
buy things from herself, and pay herself for~them, and if
she played at “houses” she had to be everybody, the
mamma, and the children, and the ladies who came to call.
She heard a loud rat-a-tat-tat at the front door, and she
wondered who it could be. Perhaps it was Mrs. Golding.
Beatrice looked at her pinafore, and wondered if Mrs.
Golding would think it very dirty. As she walked up to
the house she could hear her mother’s voice, and a lady’s
voice. They were coming out into the garden, too. She
could see her mother, with her white shawl over her head,
and a lady walking beside her. Beatrice hid behind a tree.
Then she caught sight of a girl’s white hat bobbing up and
down between her mother and the lady. She ran up the
garden as fast as her legs could carry her. ‘Lottie!
Lottie!” she cried. ‘ Beatrice!” answered the little girl
in the white hat, and the two girls ran into one another’s

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arms. ‘Now I shan’t be lonely any more,” said Beatrice.