The Boys and I by Mary Louisa Molesworth — Read

"Oh! good is the sunlight that glances, / And good are the buds and the birds; / And so all the innocent fancies / Our lips can express make good words. "

"There was once a little girl," said Miss Goldy-hair, "whose every-day life was rather dull and hard. In some ways I think it was duller than the lives of quite poor children, and in some ways I am not sure but that it was harder too. For though not really poor -- that is to say, they had enough to eat in a plain way and clothes to wear of a plain kind -- still her parents were what is called struggling people. And they had a great many children, little and big, of whom my little girl -- Letty was her name -- was one of the middle ones. No, I should hardly say one of the middle ones, for there were two older and five younger, so she was more like a big one. But she was small and delicate and seemed younger than she really was. They lived in a town -- in the very middle of it; they had to do so on account of the father's work -- and it was one of the ugliest towns you could imagine. Yet strange to say, the country round about this town was very -- what people call picturesque, if you know what that means? There were hills, and valleys, and nice woods, and chattering streams at but a very few hours' journey off. But many of the people of the town hardly knew it; they were so hard-worked and so busy about just gaining their daily bread, that they had no time for anything else. And of all the hard-worked people, I do not know that any were more so than Letty's parents. If they had been much poorer than they were, and living quite in the country, I do not think Letty would have been so much to be pitied -- not in the summer time any way, for then there are so very many pleasures that even the poorest cannot be deprived of.