"Ah, there's the sea, I do declare! and there's a boat on it with a
white sail! Shall we go in a boat some day?"
"I don't know," said nurse, "you must ask your mamma; but you don't want
to be sick, do you?"
"I won't be sick," cried the little girl. "Rosy is never sick in a
beau'ful boat like that. I'll ask my mamma," and she bustled on.
"Stay, stay!" cried nurse, "you're going too far, my pet; this is the
way; look, who stands up there?"
Rosy looked up, and there was the villa with its green blinds high up
over her head; and some one stood outside the door calling her by name.
O, what a number of steps there were for those little legs to climb
before she reached her papa!
They went up by the side of a garden, which was itself like a lot of
wide steps, and on each step there was a row of vines, not trained
against a wall as we train our vines in England, but growing on the
ground like bean plants.
Rosy saw lots of such nice grapes that her little mouth quite watered,
and she would have liked to have stopped to pick some; but then she knew
that would be stealing, because they were not hers. And I hope that Rosy
would not have stolen even if nurse had not been following her, or her
papa watching her.
She got the grapes, too, without picking them; for when she had climbed
up to the very top, there was papa waiting for her with a beautiful
bunch in his hand. And he said,--
"Come in, Rosy; mamma wants her breakfast very badly. See, mamma, what a
pair of roses your little girl has been getting already!"
Rosy knew very well what that meant, for she rubbed her cheeks with her
little fat hands, and then tumbled her merry little head about her
mamma's lap to "roll the roses off," as she said.
But that little head was too full of thoughts to stay there long.
There was so much to tell and to talk about, and that dairy took a long
time to describe. Then when papa asked if she had seen the dear cows
that gave the milk, she thought that that would be a capital little
jaunt for to-morrow, and clapped her hands with glee.
"So you are going to find some new pets, Rosy," he said, "to do instead
of Mr. Tommy and the kittens?"
"Ah, papa, but there are no dickies here--I mean, hardly any," she
answered. "We looked so for the birdies all, all the time; but only two
came, and went away again directly."
"We must go out and see the reason of that," said papa, smiling,--"you
and I, Rosy, directly after breakfast. We must go and tell the dear
birds that Rosy has come."
[Illustration]