n boy, you
know."

"Charlie's got a black face," said Olly, who was not at all pleased that
Charlie, who was smaller than he was, and dirty besides, could do
anything better than he could.

"Well, you see, he hasn't got a Nana always looking after him as you
have."

"Hasn't he got _any_ Nana?" asked Olly, looking as if he didn't
understand how there could be little children without Nanas.

"He hasn't got any nurse but his mother, and Mrs. Wheeler has a great
deal else to do than looking after him. What would you be like, do you
think, Olly, if I had to do all the housework, and cook the dinner, and
mind the baby, and there was no nurse to wash your face and hands for
you?"

"I should get just like shock-headed Peter," said Olly, shaking his head
gravely at the idea. Shock-headed Peter was a dirty little boy in one of
Olly's picture-books; but I am sure you must have heard about him
already, and must have seen the picture of him with his bushy hair, and
his terrible long nails like birds' claws. Olly was never tired of
hearing about him, and about all the other children in that
picture-book.

"What a funny little girl Bessie is, mother!" said Milly. "Do they
always say _Naw_ and _Yis_ in this country, instead of saying No and
Yes, like we do?"

"Well, most of the people that live here do," said Mrs. Norton. "Their
way of talking sounds odd and queer at first, Milly, but when you get
used to it you will like it as I do, because it seems like a part of the
mountains."

All this time they had been climbing up a steep path behind the
gardener's house, and now Mr. Norton opened a door in a high wall, and
let the children into a beautiful kitchen-garden made on the mountain
side, so that when they looked down from the gate they could see the
chimneys of Ravensnest just below them. Inside there were all kinds of
fruit and vegetables, but gooseberry bushes and the strawberries had
nothing but green gooseberries and white strawberries to show, to Olly's
great disappointment.

"Why aren't the strawberries red, mother?" he asked in a discontented
voice, as if it must be somebody's fault that they weren't red. "Ours at
home were ripe."

"Well, Olly, I suppose the strawberries know best. All I can tell you
is, that things always get ripe here later than at Willingham. Their
summer begins a little later than ours does, and so everything gets
pushed on a little. But there will be plenty by-and-by. And suppose just
now,