If anybody had been walking in Madam Bird's old-fashioned garden that morning, and had heard these wise words coming from the other side of the rose thicket, he would certainly have supposed that some old dame with a school was hidden away there, or at the least an anxious Mamma with a family of unruly children. But if this somebody had gone into the thicket, bobbing his head to avoid the prickly, wreath-like branches, he would have found on the other side only one person, little Lota Bird, playing all alone with her dolls. "Lady Bird" Nursey called Lota, because when, six years before, Papa fetched her home from China, she wore a speckled frock of orange-red and black, very much the color of those other tiny frocks in which the real lady-birds fly about in summer-time. The speckled frock was outgrown long ago, but the name still clung to Lota, and every one called her by it except Grandmamma, who said "Charlotte," sighing as she spoke, and Papa, whose letters always began, "My darling little Lota." Papa had been away so long now that Lota would quite have forgotten him had it not been for these letters which came regularly every month. The paper on which they were written had an odd, pleasant smell. Nurse said it was the smell of sandal-wood. Sometimes there were things inside for Lota, bird's feathers of gay colors, Chinese puzzles of carved ivory, or small pictures painted on rice paper. Lota liked these things very much. It was like playing at a Papa rather than really having one, but she enjoyed the play; and when they told her that Papa was soon coming home to stay always, she was only half glad, and said: "Won't there be any more letters then? I shan't like that." Poor little girlie: we, who know how nice it is to have real Papas, can feel sorry for her; can't we?
But Lota did not pity herself in the least. Grandmamma's house was stiff and gloomy, shaded by high trees and thick vines which jealously shut out the sun whenever he tried to shine in at the window panes. Grandmamma's servants were old too, like the house. Most of them had gray hair. Nursey wore spectacles; the coachman indulged in rheumatism. Grandmamma herself was old and feeble. She rarely laughed or seemed to enjoy any thing, but sat in an easy chair all the year round, and read solemn books bound in black leather, which made her cry. Jennings her maid waited on her, fetched footstools and cushions, pushed the blinds down as soon as the cheerful noon got round to that side of the house. "Missus is uncommon poorly to-day," she announced every morning. "Miss, you must be very quiet." Lota was quiet. She was the only young thing in the sad old house, but the shadows of age and sorrow fell lightly upon her, and in spite of them she was as happy a child as you will find in a summer's day. The garden was her kingdom and her Paradise. It was a wide, fragrant, shaded place, full of the shrubs and flowers of former days. Huge pink and white oleanders, planted in tubs, stood on either side the walks. Thick spikes of purple lavender edged the beds; the summer-house was a tangle of honey-suckle, rosemary, and eglantine. Roses of all colors abounded. They towered high above Lota's head as she walked,--twined and clasped, shut her in with perfumed shadows, rained showers of many-colored petals on the grass. An old-fashioned fairy would have delighted to dwell in that garden, and perhaps one did dwell there, else why should little lonely Lota have been always so very, very happy left alone among the trees and flowers? Can any one tell me that?