warmed for her, and with a bright
fire in the room. As soon as she had had some beef-tea, she went off
soundly to sleep, and only woke to drink tea, and administer supper to
the dolls, and put them to sleep.

The next evening she was sitting up by the fire, and on the fourth day
she was running about the house as if nothing had ever been the matter
with her, but she was not to go home for a fortnight; and being wet,
cold, dull weather, it was not always easy to amuse herself. She had her
dolls, to be sure, and the little dog Don, to play with, and sometimes
Mrs. Bunker would let her make funny things with the dough, or stone the
raisins, or even help make a pudding; but still there was a good deal of
time on her hands. She had only two books with her, and the rash had
made her eyes weak, so that she did not much like reading them. The
notes that every one wrote from home were quite enough for her. What
she liked best--that is, when Mrs. Bunker could not attend to her--was
to wander about the museum, explaining the things to the dolls: "That is
a crocodile, Lonicera; it eats people up, and has a little bird to pick
its teeth. Look, Clare, that bony thing is a skeleton--the skeleton of a
lizard. Paws off, my dear; mustn't touch. That's amber, just like barley
sugar, only not so nice; people make necklaces of it. There's a poor
little dead fly inside. Those are the dear delightful humming-birds;
look at their crests, just like Mamma's jewels. See the shells; aren't
they beauties? People get pearls out of those great flat ones, and dive
all down to the bottom of the sea after them; mustn't touch, my dear,
only look; paws off."

One would think Clare's curved fingers all in one piece, and Lonicera's
blue leather hands had been very movable and mischievous, judging by the
number of times this warning came; but of course it was Lucy herself who
wanted it most, for her own little plump, pinky hands did almost tingle
to handle and turn round those pretty shells. She wanted to know whether
the amber tasted like barley-sugar as it looked, and there was a little
musk deer, no bigger than Don, whom she longed to stroke, or still
better to let Lonicera ride; but she was a good little girl, and had
real sense of honour, which never betrays a trust, so she never laid a
finger on anything but what Uncle Joe had once given all free leave to
move.

This was a very big pair of globes--bigger than globes commonly are now,
and with more f