out, "Mary had a little lamb!" and "Mary, Mary, quite contrary," she
looked after him sorrowfully and thought: "Papa gave me my lamb."


IX.

One day Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella came over from Chadwell Grange.
They were talking to Mamma a long time in the drawing-room, and when
she came in they stopped and whispered.

Roddy told her the secret. Uncle Edward was going to give her a live
lamb.

Mark and Dank said it couldn't be true. Uncle Edward was not a real
uncle; he was only Aunt Bella's husband, and he never gave you
anything. And anyhow the lamb wasn't born yet and couldn't come for
weeks and weeks.

Every morning she asked, "Has my new lamb come? When is it coming? Do
you think it will come to-day?"

She could keep on sitting still quite a long time by merely thinking
about the new lamb. It would run beside her when she played in the
garden. It would eat grass out of her hand. She would tie a ribbon
round its neck and lead it up and down the lane. At these moments she
forgot the toy lamb. It stood on the chest of drawers in the nursery,
looking off into the corners of the room, neglected.

By the time Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella sent for her to come and see
the lamb, she knew exactly what it would be like and what would happen.