"It hardly needs a tongue to understand you, my dear boy, your eyes talk so fast; and as to the bumps, there is one very large one of loving me, I am certain; for you are a good, thoughtful child, but rather a small one for wanting to scamper and frolic in the open air. Come, I will make the same bargain as yesterday; half an hour's exercise, and then the story."
"Certainly," said Willie, with a pleasant laugh; "if you asked me to stand on my head, I would do it, mamma--or try, any way. I wish your ladyship good afternoon for half an hour," and Willie put his feet together, turning out his toes, and made such a very low and polite bow to his mother, that he nearly tumbled on his nose, and then ran out on the lawn.
As his mother watched him, she smiled, and sighed, and said to herself, "If my little Willie were only stronger, every desire of my heart would be fulfilled;" and then she repeated to herself those pleasant words of Willis:--
"There's something in a noble boy-- A brave, free-hearted, careless one, With his unchecked, unbidden joy-- His dread of books, and love of fun-- And in his clear and ready smile, Unshaded by a thought of guile, And unrepressed by sadness-- Which brings me to my childhood back, As if I trod its very track, And felt its very gladness."
When the half hour was over she called Willie, and he came bounding in--his cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkling; and it did not take long, let me tell you, to arrange his bench and sit close beside his mother, ready for the fine treat she had promised him.
"Where the dog bade good-bye to the griffin, and came out in the moonlight," said Willie, whose memory was excellent.
"Yes. Well, Beppo now curled his tail, in the very last fashion, over his leg, and trotted off in fine style to the cat's house. When he was within sight of it, he stopped to take a drink and a bath in a pond near by; and who should be there, to be sure, but the old magpie!
"'And what do _you_ want, friend?' said she, turning up her nose--for Beppo looked rather shabby after his confinement in the cave and his long journey.
"'I am going to see my cousin the cat,' answered he.
"'_Your_ cousin--pretty well, indeed!' said the magpie; 'don't you know she is going to be married to Reynard the fox? This is not the time for her to receive the visits of a clumsy fellow like you.'