54 COUSIN CATHERINE’S SERVANTS.

“Where are they? Where do they go to bed?” said
Edith, looking all round her, as they stood on the threshold.

“Come!” said Cousin Catherine. ‘I will tell you about
all my servants at some other time; but now, while the sun
is shining, I think you had much better be running about out-
side. A long while ago I could have run about with you, but
now you see I can only walk slowly. Once I was a little girl
and wore out boots, like you Y

Ohne youl cant hayer been said Edith, looking up into
Cousin Catherine’s face—for she did not look as if she ever
could have been young, and Edith had thought of it before.

“T was really,” said Cousin Catherine, “and now I will
tell-you something still harder to believe. If you live long
enough, one day you will be an old woman like me. So go
and run about while you can, and be as merry and happy as
the days are long. Do you see that big black cloud frowning
over there? That will bring rain before long; then if we have
to stay indoors I will tell you some stories of my servants—
of a few at least—tell you where they live, and all I know about
them. You had better not go far away from the See for one
of them has just told me aoa the rain will begin soon.’

“T didn’t see anyone,” said Edith, “ or hear anyone.”

‘Perhaps not, but I did,” said Cousin Catherine.

Edith went away to play, very anxious to know about
Cousin Catherine’s servants. ‘For perhaps one of them will
put me to bed,” she said to herself, ‘and so it will be a good
thing to know whether she is cross or not.”

It was very pleasant in the field. The pig ran away when
the little girl and her dolly wanted to play with him; but Edith
said that did not matter, for she thought it was just what a real
hippopotamus would have done, only she wished he would have
torn up the ground a little more.