THE sleigh had just driven from the door, with a great jingling and
shouting, and the little boy was left at home, with his foot up on the
sofa, for he had a sprained ankle. “I wish I could have gone!” said the
little boy.
“You shall go!” said Sister Sunshine. “We will go together, you and I!”
She brought a great book, with bright pictures in it, and sat down by
the little boy’s side.
“First, we must choose our carriage!” she said. There was a whole page
of carriage pictures, all very splendid, and after some thought they
chose a gilded shell, with the front turning over into a swan’s neck.
An Empress of Russia had driven in this, the book said, and so they
thought it was good enough for them. The horses were coal-black, and
there were six of them, four more than Papa and the other children had.
Sister Sunshine tucked the little boy well up, and it appeared that the
robes were all of ermine and sable, whereas, he had been thinking that
they were only a striped afghan. One does not always know things till
one is told.
“Here we go!” cried Sister Sunshine. “How the horses dash along! It
takes my breath away! We are going to St. Petersburg to see the ice
palace on the Neva. The Empress has sent her own private sleigh to take
the little boy, and I can go, too, because I belong to him.”
She turned the page, and there, sure enough, was the ice palace. The
sun shone splendidly on it, and it looked as if the fairies had built
it.
“There is the Empress waiting for us!” said Sister Sunshine. “I suppose
it would be polite to go in, wouldn’t it?” The little boy thought it
would, decidedly, so they took the Empress’s hand and went in, through
one grand room after another. The Empress gave them each a lovely
little porcelain stove to carry under their arm, for the ice halls were
cold.
“I am used to it,” she said, “and do not mind it.” She showed them
all her jewels, which shone and sparkled like living flames; and then
she brought them long sticks of candy, striped red and white, and
cream walnuts, and barley sugar lions, just the things the little boy
liked best; and they both said, how funny it was that she should know
all about it, when the people at home so often forgot and gave him
horehound, which he could not abide, and then said it was good for his
cold.
After that they drove a long way over the ice, and the little boy
thought he would like to go to Egypt and see if they knew their lessons
about Moses there, because he sometimes forgot his. And there was
Egypt, just a few pages off, with lots of pyramids, and the Sphinx, and
all the right Egypty things. They got on camels and went to find some
children, and there, to be sure, were plenty of them, all looking just
exactly like the pictures in the Bible; but not a single one of them
knew anything about Moses, which made the little boy feel more puffed
up than he had any reason to be.
They left the carriage and got into a Nile boat, because they wanted to
go over the Cataracts, and Sister Sunshine thought the horses might not
like it; but before they got to the very first one the little boy was
sound asleep, and he never woke up till the others came home from their
sleigh ride. He was quite sure that they could not possibly have had so
good a time as he had; and, anyhow, nobody had given them so much as a
single bite of candy; they said that themselves.