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aS “THE TWO FUNNY LITTLE TROTS.” 201

 

time. [‘ You wouldn’t believe it to see me
now, would you?” said auntie, looking up at
the children with a smile on her pretty, young-
looking face, “but it was quite true all the
same.”] I was my mother’s only girl [she
went on, turning to her manuscript again], and
she was a widow, so you can fancy what a pet
Iwas. My big brothers were already all out
in the world, in the navy, or the army, or at
college; and my mother and I generally lived
by ourselves in a country village much farther
north than St. Austin’s, and it was quite an
event to us to leave our own home for several
months, and settle ourselves down in lodgings
in a strange place.
It seemed a very strange place to us; for we
3 had not a single friend or acquaintance in it,
and at home in our village we knew everybody,
ae and everybody knew us, from the clergyman
down to Farmer Grinthwait’s sheep-dog, and
\} nothing happened without our knowing it. I
AN suppose I was naturally of rather a sociable
turn. I know my mother used sometimes in