"What a strange house you live in," said Aunt Emma, with a perfectly grave face. "You must have caught a magician somehow. That's a magician's squeak."

Again came the noise!

"I know, I know!" shouted Olly. "It's Aunt Emma's bag! I'm sure it came out of the bag."

"My bag!"--holding it up and looking at it. "Now does it look like a bag that squeaks? It's a perfectly well-behaved bag, and never did such a thing in its life."

"I know, Aunt Emma," said Olly, dancing round her in great excitement.

"You've got the parrot in there!"

"Well now," said Aunt Emma. "This is really serious. If you think I am such a cruel old woman as to shut up a poor poll-parrot in a bag, there's no help for it, we must open the bag. But it's a very curious bag--I wouldn't stand too near it if I were you."

Click! went the fastening of the bag, and out jumped--what do you think?

Why, the very biggest frog that was ever seen, in this part of the world at any rate, a green speckled frog, that hopped on to Aunt Emma's knee, and then on to the floor, where it went hopping and squeaking along the carpet, till all of a sudden, when it got to the door, it turned over on its back, and lay there quite quiet with its legs in the air.

The children followed it with looks half of horror, half of amazement.

"What is it, Aunt Emma? Is it alive?" asked Milly, jumping on to a chair as the frog came near her, and drawing her little skirts tight round her legs, while Olly went cautiously after it, with his hands on his knees, one step at a time.

"You'd better ask it," said Aunt Emma, who had at last begun to laugh a little, as if it was impossible to keep grave any longer. "I'm sure it looks very peaceable just now, poor thing."

So the children crept up to it, and examined it closely. Yes, it was a green speckled frog, but what it was made of, and whether it was alive, and if it was not alive how it managed to hop and squeak--these were the puzzles.

"Take hold of it, Milly," said Mr. Norton, who had just come up from his work, and was standing laughing near the door. "Turn it over on its legs again."

"No, I'll turn it," cried Olly, making a dash, and turning it over in a great hurry, keeping his legs and feet well out of the way. Hop! squeak!

there it was off again, right down the room with the children after it, till it suddenly came up against a table leg, and once more turned over on its back and lay quite still.

"Oh, Aunt Emma, is it a toy?" asked Milly, who now felt brave enough to take it up and look at it.

"Well, Milly, I believe so--a very lively one. Bring it here, and I'll tell you something about it."

So the children brought it very cautiously, as if they were not quite sure what it would do next, and then Aunt Emma explained to them that she had once paid a visit to a shop in London where j.a.panese toys--toys made in the country of j.a.pan--far away on the other side of the world--were sold, and that there she found master froggy.

"And there never was such a toy as froggy for a wet day," said Aunt Emma. "I have tried him on all sorts of boys and girls, and he never fails. He's as good a cure for a cross face as a poultice is for a sore finger. But, Milly, listen! I declare there's something else going on in my bag. I really think, my dear bag, you might be quiet now that you have got rid of froggy! What can all this chattering be about? Sh! sh!"

and Aunt Emma held up her finger at the children, while she held the bag up to her ear, and listened carefully. Olly was almost beside himself with excitement, but Milly had got his little brown hands tight in hers for fear he should make a jump at the bag. "Yes," said Aunt Emma. "It's just as I thought. The bag declares it's not his fault at all, but that if I will give him such noisy creatures to carry I must take the consequences. He says there's a whole family now inside him, making such a noise he can hardly hear himself speak. It's enough, he says, to drive a respectable bag mad, and he must blow up if it goes on. Dear me! I must look into this. Milly, come here!"

Milly came near, and Aunt Emma opened the bag solemnly.

"Now, Milly, I'll hold it for fear it should take it into its poor head to blow up, and you put your hand in and see what you can find."

So Milly put her hand in, feeling a good deal excited as to what might happen--and what do you think she brought out? A whole handful of the most delicious dolls:--cardboard dolls of all sorts and kinds, like those in mother's drawer at home; paper dolls, mamma dolls, little boy dolls and little girl dolls, baby dolls and nurse dolls; dolls in suits and dolls in frocks; dolls in hats and dolls in nightgowns; a papa in trousers and a mamma in a magnificent blue dress with flounces and a train; a nurse in white cap and ap.r.o.n and the most bewitching baby doll you ever saw, with a frilled paper cap that slipped on and off, and a white frock with pink ribbons. And the best of these dolls was, that each of them had a piece of cardboard fastened on behind and a little bit of cardboard to stand on, so that when you spread out the piece behind they stood up as naturally as possible, and looked as if they were going to talk to you.

"Oh, Aunt Emma, dear Aunt Emma!" cried Milly, beside herself with delight as she spread them all out in her lap. "They're just like mother's at home, mother's that you made for her when she was a little girl--only ever so many more."

"Well, Milly, I made mother's for her long ago, when it rained for days and days without stopping, and she had grown tired of pretty nearly everything and everybody indoors; and now I have been spending part of these rainy days in making a new set for mother's little girl. There, dear little woman, I think you must have given me a kiss for each of them by this time. Suppose you try and make them stand up."

"But, Aunt Emma," said Olly, who was busy examining the mysterious bag--how could the dolls talk? they're only paper."

"I know nothing about it," answered Aunt Emma, rescuing the bag, and putting it safely under her chair. "You _might_ ask the bag--but it wouldn't answer you. Magical bags never do talk except to their masters or mistresses."

So Olly had to puzzle it out for himself while he played with the j.a.panese frog. That was an extraordinary frog! You should have seen nurse's start when Olly hid himself in the pa.s.sage and sent the frog hopping and squeaking through the open door of the night nursery, where nurse was sitting sewing; and as for cook, when the creature came flopping over her kitchen floor she very nearly spoilt the hash she was making for dinner by dropping a whole pepper-box into the middle of it!

There was no end to the fun to be got out of froggy, and Olly amused himself with it the whole of the morning, while Milly went through long stories with her dolls upstairs, helped every now and then by Aunt Emma, who sat knitting and talking to mother.

At dinner the children had to sit quiet while Mr. and Mrs. Norton and Aunt Emma talked. Father and mother had been almost as much cheered up by Aunt Emma's coming as the children themselves, and now the dinner-table was lively with pleasant talk; talk about books, and talk about pictures, and talk about foreign places, and talk about the mountains and the people living near Ravensnest, many of whom mother had known when she was a little girl. Milly, who was old enough to listen, could only understand a little bit here and there; but there was always Aunt Emma's friendly gentle face to look at, and her soft old hand in its black mitten, to slip her own little fingers into; while Olly was so taken up with the prospects of the black-currant pudding which he had seen cook making in the morning, and the delight of it when it came, that it seemed no trouble to him to sit still.

As for the rain, there was not much difference. Perhaps there were a few breaks in the clouds, and it might be beating a little less heavily on the gla.s.s conservatory outside the dining-room, still, on the whole, the weather was much the same as it had been. It was wonderful to see how little notice the children had taken of it since Aunt Emma came, and when they escorted her upstairs after dinner, they quite forgot to rush to the window and look out, as they had been doing the last three days at every possible opportunity.

The children got her safe into a chair, and then Olly brought a stool to one side of her, and Milly brought a stool to the other.

"_Now,_ can you remember about old Mother Quiverquake?" said Olly, resting his little sunburnt chin on Aunt Emma's knee, and looking up to her with eager eyes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Suppose we have a story-telling game'"]

"Well, I daresay I shall begin to remember about her presently; but suppose, children, we have a _story-telling game_. We'll tell stories--you and Olly, father, mother, and everybody. That's much fairer than that one person should do all the telling."

"We couldn't," said Milly, shaking her head gravely, "we are only little children. Little children can't make up stories."

"Suppose little children try," said mother. "I think Aunt Emma's is an excellent plan. Now, father, you'll have to tell one too."

"Father's lazy," said Mr. Norton, coming out from behind his newspaper.

"But, perhaps, if you all of you tell very exciting stories you may stir him up."

"Oh, father!" cried Olly, who had a vivid remembrance of his father's stories, though they only came very seldom, "tell us about the rat with three tails, and the dog that walked on its nose."

"Oh dear, no!" said Mr. Norton, "those won't do for such a grand story-telling as this. I must think of some story which is all long words and good children."

"_Don't_ father," said Milly, imploringly, "it's ever so much nicer when they get into sc.r.a.pes, you know, and tumble down, and all that."

"Who's to begin?" said Aunt Emma. "I think mother had better begin.

Afterwards it will be your turn, Olly; then father, then Milly, and then me."

"I don't believe I've got a sc.r.a.p of a story in my head," said Mrs.

Norton. "It's weeks since I caught one last."

"Then look here, Olly," said Aunt Emma, "I'll tell you what to do. Go up gently behind mother, and kiss her three times on the top of the head.

That's the way to send the stories in. Mother will soon begin to feel one fidgeting inside her head after that."

So Olly went gently up behind his mother, climbed on a stool at the back of her chair, and kissed her softly three times at the back of her head.

Mrs. Norton lay still for a few moments after the kisses, with closed eyes.

"Ah!" she said at last. "Now I think I've caught one. But it's a very little one, poor little thing. And yet, strange to say, though it's very little, it's very old. Now, children, you must be kind to my story. I caught him first a great many years ago in an old book, but I am afraid you will hardly care for him as much as I did. Well, once upon a time there was a great king."

"Was it King Arthur, mother?" interrupted Olly, eagerly.

"Oh no! this king lived in a different country altogether. He lived in a beautiful hot country over the sea, called Spain."

"Oh, mother! a _hot_ country!" protested Milly, "that's where the rain goes to."