ook his obstinate little head.

"I don't believe it's a bit like going up stairs."

However, as they couldn't know what it was like before they tried, nurse
told them it was no good talking about it. So they hurried on with their
dressing, and presently there stood as fresh a pair of morning children
as anyone could wish to see, with rosy cheeks, and smooth hair, and
clean print frocks--for Olly was still in frocks--though when the winter
came mother said she was going to put him into knickerbockers.

And then nurse took them each by the hand and led them through some long
passages, down a pretty staircase, and through a swing door, into what
looked like a great nagged kitchen, only there was no fireplace in it.
The real kitchen opened out of it at one side, and through the door came
a smell of coffee and toast that made the children feel as hungry as
little hunters. But their own room was straight in front, across the
kitchen without a fireplace, a tiny room with one large window hung
round with roses, and looking out on to a green lawn.

"Nana, isn't it pretty? Nana, I think it's lovely!" said Milly, looking
out and clapping her hands. And it _was_ a pretty garden they could see
from the window. An up-and-down garden, with beds full of bright
flowers, and grass which was nearly all moss, and so soft that no
cushion could be softer. In the distance they could hear a little
splish-splash among the trees, which came, Milly supposed, from the
river mother had told them about; while, reaching up all round the
house, so that they could not see the top of it from the window, was the
green wild mountain itself, the mountain of Brownholme, under which
Uncle Richard's house was built.

The children hurried through their breakfast, and then nurse covered
them up with garden pinafores, and took them to the dining-room to find
father and mother. Mr. and Mrs. Norton were reading letters when the
children's curly heads appeared at the open door, and Mrs. Norton was
just saying to her husband:

"Aunt Emma sends a few lines just to welcome us, and to say that she
can't come over to us to-day, but will we all come over to her to-morrow
and have early dinner, and perhaps a row afterward--"

"Oh, a row, mother, a row!" shouted Olly, clambering on to his mother's
knee and half-strangling her with his strong little arms; "I can row,
father said I might. Are we going to-day?"

"No, to-morrow, Olly, when we've seen a little bit of Ra