Tell Me a Story. Molesworth Mrs.
about. There was one part of the day, I daresay it was the hour that the nursery children were asleep, when it was convenient for Louisa to be sent down-stairs to sit beside her mother in the drawing-room, with many injunctions to be quiet. Her mother was generally writing or “doing accounts” at that time, and not at leisure to attend to her little girl; but when Louisa appeared at the door she would look up and say with a smile, “Well, dear, and what will you have to amuse yourself with to-day?” At first Louisa used to consider for a minute, and nearly every day she would make a different request.
“A piece of paper and a pencil to write,” she would say on Monday perhaps, and on Tuesday it would be “The box with the chess, please,” and on Wednesday something else. But after a while her answer came to be always the same – “Your big workbox to tidy, please, mamma.”
Mamma smiled at the great need of tidying that had come over her big workbox, but she knew she could certainly trust Louisa not to un-tidy it, so she used just to push it across the table to her without speaking, and then for an hour at least nothing more was heard of Louisa. She sat quite still, fully as absorbed in her occupation as her mother was in hers, till at last the well-known tap at the door would bring her back from dream-land.
“Miss Louisa, your dinner is waiting,” or “Miss Louisa, the little ones are quite ready to go out;” and, with a deep sigh, the workbox would be closed and the little girl would obey the unwelcome summons.
And next day, and the day after, and a great many days after that, it was always the same thing. But nobody knew anything about these queer friends of hers, except Louisa herself.
There were several families of them, and their names were as original as themselves. There were the Browns, reels of brown wood wound with white cotton; as far as I remember there were a Mr and Mrs Brown and three children; the Browns were supposed to be quiet, respectable people, who lived in a large house in the country, but had nothing particularly romantic or exciting about them. There were the De Cordays, so named from the conspicuous mark of “three cord” which they bore. They were a set of handsome bone, or, as Louisa called it, ivory reels, and she added the “De” to their name to make it sound grander. There were two pretty little reels of fine China silk, whom she distinguished as the Chinese Princesses. Blanche and Rose were their first names, to suit the colours they bore, for Louisa, you see, had learnt a little French already; and there were some larger silk reels, whom she called the “Lords and Ladies Flossy.” Altogether there were between twenty and thirty personages in the workbox community, and the adventures they had, the elegance and luxury in which they lived, the wonderful stories they told each other, would fill more pages than I have time to write, or than you, kind little girls that you are, would have patience to read. I must hasten on to tell you how it came to pass that this queer fancy of Louisa’s was discovered by other people.
One morning when she was sitting quietly, as usual, beside her mother, a friend of Mrs no, we need not tell her name, I should like you best just to think of her as Louisa’s mamma – well then, a friend of Louisa’s mamma’s came to call. She was a lady who lived in the country several miles away from Smokytown, but she was very fond of Louisa’s mamma, and whenever she had to come to Smokytown to shop, or anything of that kind, perhaps to take her little girl (for she too had a little girl as you shall hear) to the dentist’s, she always came early to call on her friend. Louisa’s mamma jumped up at once, when the servant threw open the door and announced the lady by name, and then they kissed each other, and then Louisa’s mamma stooped down and kissed the lady’s little girl who was standing beside her, but Louisa sat so quietly at her corner of the table, that for a minute or two no one noticed her. She was just thinking if she could manage to creep down under the table and slip away out of the room without being seen, when her mamma called her.
“Louisa, my dear,” she said, “come here and speak to Mrs Gordon and to Frances. You remember Frances, don’t you, dear?”
Louisa got down slowly off her chair and came to her mamma. She stood looking at Frances for a minute or two without speaking.
“Don’t you remember Frances?” said her mamma again.
“No,” said Louisa at last, “I don’t think I do.” Then she turned away as if she were going back to her place at the table. Her mamma looked vexed.
“Poor little thing,” said Mrs Gordon, “she is only rather shy. Frances, you must make friends with her.”
“Louisa, I am not pleased with you,” said her mamma gravely, and then she went on talking to Mrs Gordon.
Frances followed Louisa to the table, where all the reels were arranged in order. There was a grand feast going on among them that day: one of the Chinese princesses was to be married to one of the Lords Flossy, and Louisa had been smartening them up for the occasion. But she did not want to tell Frances about it.
“I am only playing with mamma’s workbox things,” she said, looking up at Frances, and wishing she had not come. She had taken a dislike to Frances, and the reason was not a very nice one – she was envious of her because she had such a pretty face and was very beautifully dressed. She had long curls of bright light hair, and large blue eyes, and she had a purple velvet coat trimmed with fur, and a sweet little bonnet with rosebuds in the cap, and Louisa’s mamma would never let her have rosebuds or any flowers in her bonnets. To Louisa’s eyes she looked almost as beautiful as a fairy princess, but the thought vexed her.
“Playing with your mamma’s workbox things,” said Frances, “how very funny! You poor little thing, have you got nothing else to play with?”
She spoke as if she were several years older than Louisa, and this made Louisa still more vexed.
“Yes,” she answered, “of course I have got other things, but I like these. You can’t understand.” Frances smiled. “How funny you are!” she said again, “but never mind. Let us talk of something nice. Perhaps you would like to hear what things I have got to play with. I have a room all for myself, filled with toys. I have got a large doll-house, as tall as myself, with eight rooms; and I have sixteen dolls of different kinds. They were mostly birthday presents. But I am getting too big to care for them now. My birthday was last week. What do you think papa gave me? Something so beautiful that I had wanted for such a long time. I don’t think you could guess.”
In spite of herself Louisa was becoming interested. “I don’t know, I’m sure,” she said; “perhaps it was a book full of stories.”
Frances shook her head. “O no,” she answered, “it wasn’t. That would be nothing particular, and my present was something particular, very particular indeed. Well, you can’t guess, so I’ll tell you – it was a Princess’s dress; a real dress you know; a dress that I can put on and wear.”
“A Princess’s dress!” repeated Louisa, opening her eyes.
“Yes, to be sure,” said Frances. “I call it a Princess’s dress, because it is copied from one the Princess Fair Star wore at the pantomime last Christmas. It was there I saw it, and I have teased papa ever since till he got it for me. And it is so beautiful; quite beautiful enough for a queen for that matter. My papa often calls me his queen, sometimes he says his golden-haired queen. Does yours?”
“No,” said Louisa sadly; “my papa sometimes calls me his pet, and sometimes he calls me ‘old woman,’ but he never says I am his queen. I suppose I am not pretty enough.”
“I don’t know,” said Frances, consideringly, “I don’t think you’re ugly exactly. Perhaps if you asked your papa to get you a Princess’s dress – ”
“He wouldn’t,” said Louisa decidedly, “I know he wouldn’t. It would not be the least use asking him. Tell me more about yours – what is it like, and does it make you feel like a real princess when you have it on?”
“I suppose it makes me look like one,” replied Frances complacently, “and as for feeling, why one can always fancy, you know.”
“Fancying isn’t enough,” said Louisa. “I know I should dreadfully like to be a princess or a queen. It is the