Lolla by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

"NOW, Lolla, can I trust you to run about by yourself for a while? " asked Aunt Delight, when breakfast was done and family prayers were over.

"I don't exactly know what you mean, aunt," said Lolla.

"Can I trust you not to pick the flowers, or tread upon the flower-beds, or meddle with what does not belong to you? If so, you may go where you like about the house and garden; but you must not go outside the gate unless I give you leave. I suppose you will be like a kitten brought into a strange house: you will like to make acquaintance with every thing about you."

"I won't meddle with any thing," said Lolla. "But why may I not go into the street, Aunt Delight?"

"For this reason, among others: that you might easily get lost, and it would not perhaps be so easy to find you again."

"May I go down to the gate and look-out? " asked Lolla.

"Yes, if you do not go outside. By-and-by we will begin some lessons; for it will not do to play all the time. But to-day I am going to be busy about the house all the morning: so you will know where to find me if you want me."

Lolla was pleased with the permission to go where she liked,-and pleased, too, with being trusted. She spent an hour or two very pleasantly in exploring the garden and greenhouses, and going about the house, where there seemed so many pictures, and books, and curious boxes, and china vases, and pots, and bowls. One pair of vases, which stood in the hall, especially excited her curiosity, they were so very large. They were nearly as tall as herself; she thought she could have got into one of them easily,-and had covers, which fastened with large metal hinges and hasps.

Then she put on her hat again and went down to the gate, where she saw a little boy mounted on a Shetland pony not much larger than her father's great Newfoundland dog, and a girl driving a little donkey in a low wagon, and some cows in a field opposite, each with a thin blanket on to keep off the flies, and each one tethered to a stake by a long rope.

"Well," thought Lolla, "they seem to take a great deal of care of their cows; but if I were a cow, I should rather be running about on the prairie than be tied up in that way."

Just then she heard a church-clock strike eleven, and she remembered that it was more than two hours since she had had any thing to eat: so she sauntered slowly to the house, and went in at the back door.

She found Aunt Delight in her neat little store-room, surrounded by shelves full of preserves and canned fruit, stone jars which reminded one of pickles and cake, bunches of sweet and medicinal herbs, and bottles and jugs of all shapes and sizes.

"Please, aunt," said Lolla, "I want something to eat."

"Do you? " said Aunt Delight. "For what?"

Lolla smiled at the oddness of the question.

"Because I am hungry, aunt."

"Are you sure it is because you are hungry, or because you are used to eating just about this time? But never mind. Go to Sarah, in the kitchen, and ask her to give you a piece of bread-and-butter."

"I don't like bread-and-butter very much," said Lolla. "Nurse used to give me a piece of cake."

"I don't like little girls to be always eating sweet things," said Aunt Delight. "It is bad for their teeth and for their health. If you are really hungry, bread-and-butter will taste good to you. If you are not hungry, you do not want any thing."

"Mother lets me have cake," persisted Lolla; "and I guess she knows what is good for me as well as anybody."