upted Milly, "we could put on our sand shoes."

"And wouldn't we splash!" said Olly. "Nurse won't let us splash in our
bath, father, she says it makes a mess. I'm sure it doesn't make a
_great_ mess."

"What do you know about it, shrimp?" said Mr. Norton, "you don't have to
tidy up. Hush, isn't that mother calling? Let's go and fetch her, and
then we'll go and see Uncle Richard's farm, where the milk you had for
breakfast came from. There are three children there, Milly, besides cows
and pigs, and ducks and chickens."

Back ran Milly and Olly, and there was mother watching for them with a
basket on her arm which had already got some roses lying in it.

"Oh, mother! where did you get those roses?" cried Milly.

"Wheeler, the gardener, gave them to me. And now suppose we go first of
all to see Mrs. Wheeler, and gardener's two little children. They live
in that cottage over there, across the brook, and the two little ones
have just been peeping over the wall to try and get a look at you."

Up clambered Milly and Olly along a steep path that seemed to take them
up into the mountain, when suddenly they turned, and there was another
river, but such a tiny river, Milly could almost jump across it, and it
was tumbling and leaping down the rocks on its way to the big river
which they had just seen, as if it were a little child hurrying to its
mother.

"Why, mother, what a lot of rivers," said Olly, running on to a little
bridge that had been built across the little stream, and looking over.

"Just to begin with," said Mrs. Norton. "You'll see plenty more before
you've done. But I can't have you calling this a river, Olly. These baby
rivers are called becks in Westmoreland--some of the big ones, too,
indeed."

On the other side of the little bridge was the gardener's cottage, and
in front of the door stood two funny fair-haired little children with
their fingers in their mouths, staring at Milly and Olly. One was a
little girl who was really about Milly's age, though she looked much
younger, and the other was a very shy small boy, with blue eyes and
straggling yellow hair, and a face that might have been pretty if you
could have seen it properly. But Charlie seemed to have made up his mind
that nobody ever should see it properly. However often his mother might
wash him, and she was a tidy woman, who liked to see her children look
clean and nice, Charlie was always black. His face was black, his hands
were black, his pin