The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Folks (July 1884), by Various

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Title: Little Folks (July 1884)
A Magazine for the Young

Author: Various

Release Date: December 19, 2008 [EBook #27564]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:
Phrases printed in italics in the original version are
indicated in this electronic version by _ (underscore).
A list of amendments are given at the end of the book.

LITTLE FOLKS:

_A Magazine for the Young._

_NEW AND ENLARGED SERIES._

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED:

_LONDON, PARIS & NEW YORK._

[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]

[Illustration]

[Illustration: A QUEEN OF THE BEACH.]

LITTLE FOLKS.

A LITTLE TOO CLEVER.

_By the Author of "Pen's Perplexities," "Margaret's Enemy," "Maid
Marjory," &c._

CHAPTER I.--THE MOOR.

[Illustration]

Crimson and gold. As far as one could see across the moor it was one
broad expanse of purply heather, kindled into a glowing crimson by the
blaze of ruddy sunshine, and lighted here and there by bright patches of
the thorny golden rod. Dame Nature had evidently painted out of her
summer paint-box, and had not spared her best and brightest colours.
Crimson-lake, children; you know what a lovely colour it is, and how
fast it goes, for you are very fond of using it, and there is only one
cake in each of your boxes. But here was crimson-lake enough to have
emptied all the paint-boxes in the world, you might suppose, and the
brightest of goldy yellows, and the greenest of soft transparent greens,
such as no paint-box ever did, nor ever will, possess; and over all the
most azure of blues, flecked with floating masses of soft indescribable
white, looking to Elsie like the foamy soapsuds at the top of the tub
when mother had been having a rare wash, but to Duncan like lumps of
something he had once tasted and never forgotten, called cocoa-nut ice.

It seemed a pity when Dame Nature had spent her colours so lavishly that
there sh