te in her glory,
When telling us nice little tales."

[Illustration: He was not a very amusing person.]

As ill-luck would have it, this day also was wet and dreary. I don't
know that Mrs. Partridge or Sarah regretted it, for if it had been fine
one of the servants would have had to take us out for a walk. But we
were very sorry. Anything would have been better than another long
dreary day up in the dull nursery. Still we had some variety to-day, for
our tutor came to give us our first lesson, which took up two hours. He
was not a very amusing person; he was very thin and tired-looking, but
he was perfectly gentle, so we liked him well enough. We liked him too
for another reason. He said that we were very well on for our ages; and
as mother had always taught us herself, we felt quite pleased for him to
say so. He left us some lessons to do for the next day, but not much.
Long before the afternoon was half over we had finished them, and were
wondering whatever we could get to do to help us through all the hours
that still remained. This was not a day for Uncle Geoff seeing people in
his house, so we had not even the fun of listening to the carriages
stopping, and the bell ringing, and trying to peep at the ladies and
gentlemen getting out. Sarah was rather kind--she came in and out to see
us as often as she could, but of course she had a great deal of work to
do, and she said Mrs. Partridge made her work even harder than she
needed. Mrs. Partridge did not come up-stairs again herself all day, and
of that we were very glad-- I suppose she found the stairs too much for
her.

Before the end of that afternoon, I think we had changed our minds about
wishing we might have no nurse. Even a rather cross nurse would have
been better than none at all. It was very tiresome every time we wanted
anything to have to fetch it ourselves, or to have to run out to the
landing and stand there till Sarah happened to come in sight. There was
no bell in the nursery, at least it was broken, but even if it hadn't
been, we shouldn't have dared to ring it. And two buttons came off
Racey's boot--both off the same boot, just out of tiresomeness--and he
couldn't keep it on properly, and he had to wear cloth boots in the
house, because the winter before he had had such bad chilblains, so I
had to try to sew them on, and you don't know how I pricked my fingers!
I do think there is nothing so horrible as sewing on boot buttons.

And then when T