1. MARLYN JOY T. CAÑEDA GRADE-7 ANTHURIUM
The Dreamer
by H.H. Munro (SAKI)
It was the season of sales. The august establishment of Walpurgis and Nettle pink had
lowered its prices for an entire week as a concession to trade observances, much as an
Arch-duchess might protestingly contract an attack of influenza for the unsatisfactory
reason that influenza was locally prevalent. Adela Chemping, who considered herself in
some measure superior to the allurements of an ordinary bargain sale, made a point of
attending the reduction week at Walpurgis and Nettle pink’s.
"I'm not a bargain hunter," she said, "but I like to go where bargains are."
Which showed that beneath her surface strength of character there flowed a gracious
undercurrent of human weakness.
With a view to providing herself with a male escort Mrs. Chemping had invited her
youngest nephew to accompany her on the first day of the shopping expedition, throwing
in the additional allurement of a cinematograph theatre and the prospect of light
refreshment. As Cyprian was not yet eighteen she hoped he might not have reached that
stage in masculine development when parcel-carrying is looked on as a thing abhorrent.
"Meet me just outside the floral department," she wrote to him, "and don't be a moment
later than eleven."
Cyprian was a boy who carried with him through early life the wondering look of a
dreamer, the eyes of one who sees things that are not visible to ordinary mortals, and
invests the commonplace things of this world with qualities unsuspected by plainer folk the eyes of a poet or a house agent. He was quietly dressed - that sartorial quietude
which frequently accompanies early adolescence, and is usually attributed by novelwriters to the influence of a widowed mother. His hair was brushed back in smoothness
as of ribbon seaweed and seamed with a narrow furrow that scarcely aimed at being a
parting. His aunt particularly noted this item of his toilet when they met at the appointed
rendezvous, because he was standing waiting for her bare-headed.
"Where is your hat?" she asked.
"I didn't bring one with me," he replied.
Adela Chemping was slightly scandalized.
"You are not going to be what they call a Nut, are you?" she inquired with some anxiety,
partly with the idea that a Nut would be an extravagance which her sister's small
household would scarcely be justified in incurring, partly, perhaps, with the instinctive
apprehension that a Nut, even in its embryo stage, would refuse to carry parcels.
Cyprian looked at her with his wondering, dreamy eyes.
"I didn't bring a hat," he said, "because it is such a nuisance when one is shopping; I
mean it is so awkward if one meets anyone one knows and has to take one's hat off
when one's hands are full of parcels. If one hasn't got a hat on one can't take it off."
Mrs. Chemping sighed with great relief; her worst fear had been laid at rest.
"It is more orthodox to wear a hat," she observed, and then turned her attention briskly to
the business in hand.
"We will go first to the table-linen counter," she said, leading the way in that direction; "I
should like to look at some napkins."
The wondering look deepened in Cyprian's eyes as he followed his aunt; he belonged to
a generation that is supposed to be over-fond of the role of mere spectator, but looking
at napkins that one did not mean to buy was a pleasure beyond his comprehension. Mrs.
Chemping held one or two napkins up to the light and stared fixedly at them, as though

2. she half expected to find some revolutionary cipher written on them in scarcely visible
ink; then she suddenly broke away in the direction of the glassware department.
"Millicent asked me to get her a couple of decanters if there were any going really
cheap," she explained on the way, "and I really do want a salad bowl. I can come back
to the napkins later on."
She handled and scrutinized a large number of decanters and a long series of salad
bowls, and finally bought seven chrysanthemum vases.
"No one uses that kind of vase nowadays," she informed Cyprian, "but they will do for
presents next Christmas."
Two sunshades that were marked down to a price that Mrs. Chemping considered
absurdly cheap were added to her purchases.
"One of them will do for Ruth Colson; she is going out to the Malay States, and a
sunshade will always be useful there. And I must get her some thin writing paper. It
takes up no room in one's baggage."
Mrs. Chemping bought stacks of writing paper; it was so cheap, and it went so flat in a
trunk or portmanteau. She also bought a few envelopes - envelopes somehow seemed
rather an extravagance compared with notepaper.
"Do you think Ruth will like blue or grey paper?" she asked Cyprian.
"Grey," said Cyprian, who had never met the lady in question.
"Have you any mauve notepaper of this quality?" Adela asked the assistant.
"We haven't any mauve," said the assistant, "but we've two shades of green and a
darker shade of grey."
Mrs. Chemping inspected the greens and the darker grey, and chose the blue.
"Now we can have some lunch," she said.
Cyprian behaved in an exemplary fashion in the refreshment department, and cheerfully
accepted a fish cake and a mince pie and a small cup of coffee as adequate restoratives
after two hours of concentrated shopping. He was adamant, however, in resisting his
aunt's suggestion that a hat should be bought for him at the counter where men's
headwear was being disposed of at temptingly reduced prices.
"I've got as many hats as I want at home," he said, "and besides, it rumples one's hair
so, trying them on."
Perhaps he was going to develop into a Nut after all. It was a disquieting symptom that
he left all the parcels in charge of the cloak-room attendant.
"We shall be getting more parcels presently," he said, "so we need not collect these till
we have finished our shopping."
His aunt was doubtfully appeased; some of the pleasure and excitement of a shopping
expedition seemed to evaporate when one was deprived of immediate personal contact
with one's purchases.
"I'm going to look at those napkins again," she said, as they descended the stairs to the
ground floor. "You need not come," she added, as the dreaming look in the boy's eyes
changed for a moment into one of mute protest, "you can meet me afterwards in the
cutlery department; I've just remembered that I haven't a corkscrew in the house that
can be depended on."
Cyprian was not to be found in the cutlery department when his aunt in due course
arrived there, but in the crush and bustle of anxious shoppers and busy attendants it was
an easy matter to miss anyone. It was in the leather goods department some quarter of
an hour later that Adela Chemping caught sight of her nephew, separated from her by a
rampart of suit-cases and portmanteaux and hemmed in by the jostling crush of human
beings that now invaded every corner of the great shopping emporium. She was just in
time to witness a pardonable but rather embarrassing mistake on the part of a lady who
had wriggled her way with unstayable determination towards the bareheaded Cyprian,

3. and was now breathlessly demanding the sale price of a handbag which had taken her
fancy.
"There now," exclaimed Adela to herself, "she takes him for one of the shop assistants
because he hasn't got a hat on. I wonder it hasn't happened before."
Perhaps it had. Cyprian, at any rate, seemed neither startled nor embarrassed by the
error into which the good lady had fallen. Examining the ticket on the bag, he announced
in a clear, dispassionate voice:
"Black seal, thirty-four shillings, marked down to twenty-eight. As a matter of fact, we are
clearing them out at a special reduction price of twenty-six shillings. They are going off
rather fast."
"I'll take it," said the lady, eagerly digging some coins out of her purse.
"Will you take it as it is?" asked Cyprian; "it will be a matter of a few minutes to get it
wrapped up, there is such a crush."
"Never mind, I'll take it as it is," said the purchaser, clutching her treasure and counting
the money into Cyprian's palm.
Several kind strangers helped Adela into the open air.
"It's the crush and the heat," said one sympathizer to another; "it's enough to turn
anyone giddy."
When she next came across Cyprian he was standing in the crowd that pushed and
jostled around the counters of the book department. The dream look was deeper than
ever in his eyes. He had just sold two books of devotion to an elderly Canon.
The Dreamer was featured as The Short Story of the Day on Tue, Mar 12, 2013

4. MARLYN JOY T. CAÑEDA GRADE-7 ANTHURIUM
The Student
by Anton Chekhov
At first the weather was fine and still. The thrushes were calling, and in the swamps
close by something alive droned pitifully with a sound like blowing into an empty bottle. A
snipe flew by, and the shot aimed at it rang out with a gay, resounding note in the spring
air. But when it began to get dark in the forest a cold, penetrating wind blew
inappropriately from the east, and everything sank into silence. Needles of ice stretched
across the pools, and it felt cheerless, remote, and lonely in the forest. There was a whiff
of winter.
Ivan Velikopolsky, the son of a sacristan, and a student of the clerical academy,
returning home from shooting, kept walking on the path by the water-logged meadows.
His fingers were numb and his face was burning with the wind. It seemed to him that the
cold that had suddenly come on had destroyed the order and harmony of things, that
nature itself felt ill at ease, and that was why the evening darkness was falling more
rapidly than usual. All around it was deserted and peculiarly gloomy. The only light was
one gleaming in the widows' gardens near the river; the village, over three miles away,
and everything in the distance all round was plunged in the cold evening mist. The
student remembered that, as he had left the house, his mother was sitting barefoot on
the floor in the entryway, cleaning the samovar, while his father lay on the stove
coughing; as it was Good Friday nothing had been cooked, and the student was terribly
hungry. And now, shrinking from the cold, he thought that just such a wind had blown in
the days of Rurik and in the time of Ivan the Terrible and Peter, and in their time there
had been just the same desperate poverty and hunger, the same thatched roofs with
holes in them, ignorance, misery, the same desolation around, the same darkness, the
same feeling of oppression -- all these had existed, did exist, and would exist, and the
lapse of a thousand years would make life no better. And he did not want to go home.
The gardens were called the widows' because they were kept by two widows, mother
and daughter. A campfire was burning brightly with a crackling sound, throwing out light
far around on the ploughed earth. The widow Vasilisa, a tall, fat old woman in a man's
coat, was standing by and looking thoughtfully into the fire; her daughter Lukerya, a little
pockmarked woman with a stupid-looking face, was sitting on the ground, washing a
cauldron and spoons. Apparently they had just had supper. There was a sound of men's
voices; it was the laborers watering their horses at the river.
"Here you have winter back again," said the student, going up to the campfire. "Good
evening."
Vasilisa started, but at once recognized him and smiled cordially.
"I did not know you; God bless you," she said. "You'll be rich."
They talked. Vasilisa, a woman of experience who had been in service with the gentry,
first as a wet-nurse, afterwards as a children's nurse expressed herself with refinement,
and a soft, sedate smile never left her face; her daughter Lukerya, a village peasant
woman who had been beaten by her husband, simply screwed up her eyes at the
student and said nothing, and she had a strange expression like that of a deaf-mute.
"At just such a fire the Apostle Peter warmed himself," said the student, stretching out
his hands to the fire, "so it must have been cold then, too. Ah, what a terrible night it
must have been, granny! An utterly dismal long night!"
He looked round at the darkness, shook his head abruptly and asked:
"No doubt you have heard the reading of the Twelve Apostles?"
"Yes, I have," answered Vasilisa.

5. "If you remember, at the Last Supper Peter said to Jesus, 'I am ready to go with Thee
into darkness and unto death.' And our Lord answered him thus: 'I say unto thee, Peter,
before the cock croweth thou wilt have denied Me thrice.' After the supper Jesus went
through the agony of death in the garden and prayed, and poor Peter was weary in spirit
and faint, his eyelids were heavy and he could not struggle against sleep. He fell asleep.
Then you heard how Judas the same night kissed Jesus and betrayed Him to His
tormentors. They took Him bound to the high priest and beat Him, while Peter,
exhausted, worn out with misery and alarm, hardly awake, you know, feeling that
something awful was just going to happen on earth, followed behind. . . . He loved Jesus
passionately, intensely, and now he saw from far off how He was beaten. . . . "
Lukerya left the spoons and fixed an immovable stare upon the student.
"They came to the high priest's," he went on; "they began to question Jesus, and
meantime the laborers made a fire in the yard as it was cold, and warmed themselves.
Peter, too, stood with them near the fire and warmed himself as I am doing. A woman,
seeing him, said: 'He was with Jesus, too' -- that is as much as to say that he, too,
should be taken to be questioned. And all the laborers that were standing near the fire
must have looked sourly and suspiciously at him, because he was confused and said: 'I
don't know Him.' A little while after again someone recognized him as one of Jesus'
disciples and said: 'Thou, too, art one of them,' but again he denied it. And for the third
time someone turned to him: 'Why, did I not see thee with Him in the garden today?' For
the third time he denied it. And immediately after that time the cock crowed, and Peter,
looking from afar off at Jesus, remembered the words He had said to him in the evening.
. . . He remembered, he came to himself, went out of the yard and wept bitterly -- bitterly.
In the Gospel it is written: 'He went out and wept bitterly.' I imagine it: the still, still, dark,
dark garden, and in the stillness, faintly audible, smothered sobbing.. . . ."
The student sighed and sank into thought. Still smiling, Vasilisa suddenly gave a gulp,
big tears flowed freely down her cheeks, and she screened her face from the fire with
her sleeve as though ashamed of her tears, and Lukerya, staring immovably at the
student, flushed crimson, and her expression became strained and heavy like that of
someone enduring intense pain.
The laborers came back from the river, and one of them riding a horse was quite near,
and the light from the fire quivered upon him. The student said good-night to the widows
and went on. And again the darkness was about him and his fingers began to be numb.
A cruel wind was blowing, winter really had come back and it did not feel as though
Easter would be the day after tomorrow.
Now the student was thinking about Vasilisa: since she had shed tears all that had
happened to Peter the night before the Crucifixion must have some relation to her. . . .
He looked round. The solitary light was still gleaming in the darkness and no figures
could be seen near it now. The student thought again that if Vasilisa had shed tears, and
her daughter had been troubled, it was evident that what he had just been telling them
about, which had happened nineteen centuries ago, had a relation to the present -- to
both women, to the desolate village, to himself, to all people. The old woman had wept,
not because he could tell the story touchingly, but because Peter was near to her,
because her whole being was interested in what was passing in Peter's soul.
And joy suddenly stirred in his soul, and he even stopped for a minute to take breath.
"The past," he thought, "is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events
flowing one out of another." And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that
chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered.
When he crossed the river by the ferryboat and afterwards, mounting the hill, looked at
his village and towards the west where the cold crimson sunset lay a narrow streak of
light, he thought that truth and beauty which had guided human life there in the garden

6. and in the yard of the high priest had continued without interruption to this day, and had
evidently always been the chief thing in human life and in all earthly life, indeed; and the
feeling of youth, health, vigor -- he was only twenty-two -- and the inexpressible sweet
expectation of happiness, of unknown mysterious happiness, took possession of him
little by little, and life seemed to him enchanting, marvelous, and full of lofty meaning.
The Student was featured as The Short Story of the Day on Tue, Oct 01, 2013

7. MARLYN JOY T. CAÑEDA GRADE-7 ANTHURIUM
The Doll's House
by Katherine Mansfield
WHEN dear old Mrs. Hay went back to town after staying with the Burnells she sent the
children a doll's house. It was so big that the carter and Pat carried it into the courtyard,
and there it stayed, propped up on two wooden boxes beside the feed-room door. No
harm could come to it; it was summer. And perhaps the smell of paint would have gone
off by the time it had to be taken in. For, really, the smell of paint coming from that doll's
house (' Sweet of old Mrs. Hay, of course ; most sweet and generous ! ')—but the smell
of paint was quite enough to make anyone seriously ill, in Aunt Beryl's opinion. Even
before the sacking was taken off. And when it was...
There stood the Doll's house, a dark, oily, spinach green, picked out with bright yellow.
Its two solid little chimneys, glued on to the roof, were painted red and white, and the
door, gleaming with yellow varnish, was like a little slab of toffee. Four windows, real
windows, were divided into panes by a broad streak of green. There was actually a tiny
porch, too, painted yellow, with big lumps of congealed paint hanging along the edge.
But perfect, perfect little house! Who could possibly mind the smell. It was part of the joy,
part of the newness.
" Open it quickly, someone ! "
The hook at the side was stuck fast. Pat prized it open with his penknife, and the whole
house front swung back, and—there you were, gazing at one and the same moment into
the drawing-room and dining-room, the kitchen and two bedrooms. That is the way for a
house to open ! Why don't all houses open like that ? How much more exciting than
peering through the slit of a door into a mean little hall with a hat stand and two
umbrellas! That is—isn't it ?—what you long to know about a house when you put your
hand on the knocker. Perhaps it is the way God opens houses at the dead of night when
He is taking a quiet turn with an angel...
" O-oh! " The Burnell children sounded as though they were in despair. It was too
marvelous ; it was too much for them. They had never seen anything like it in their lives.
All the rooms were papered. There were pictures on the walls, painted on the paper, with
gold frames complete. Red carpet covered all the floors except the kitchen ; red plush
chairs in the drawing-room, green in the dining-room; tables, beds with real bedclothes,
a cradle, a stove, a dresser with tiny plates and one big jug. But what Kezia liked more
than anything, what she liked frightfully", was the lamp. It stood in the middle of the
dining-room table, an exquisite little amber lamp with a white globe. It was even filled all
ready for lighting, though, of course, you couldn't light it. But there was something inside
that looked like oil and moved when you shook it.
The father and mother dolls, who sprawled very stiff as though they had fainted in the
drawing-room, and their two little children asleep upstairs, were really too big for the
doll's house. They didn't look as though they belonged. But the lamp was perfect. It
seemed to smile at Kezia, to say, " I live here." The lamp was real.
The Burnell children could hardly walk to school fast enough the next morning. They
burned to tell everybody, to describe, to—well —to boast about their doll's house before
the school-bell rang.
" I'm to tell," said Isabel, " because I'm the eldest. And you two can join in after. But I'm
to tell first."
There was nothing to answer. Isabel was bossy, but she was always right, and Lottie
and Kezia knew too well the powers that went with being eldest. They brushed through
the thick buttercups at the road edge and said nothing.

8. " And I'm to choose who's to come and see it first. Mother said I might."
For it had been arranged that while the doll's house stood in the courtyard they might
ask the girls at school, two at a time, to come and look. Not to stay to tea, of course, or
to come traipsing through the house. But just to stand quietly in the courtyard while
Isabel pointed out the beauties, and Lottie and Kezia looked pleased...
But hurry as they might, by the time they had reached the tarred palings of the boys'
playground the bell had begun to jangle. They only just had time to whip off their hats
and fall into line before the roll was called. Never mind. Isabel tried to make up for it by
looking very important and mysterious and by whispering behind her hand to the girls
near her, " Got something to tell you at playtime."
Playtime came and Isabel was surrounded. The girls of her class nearly fought to put
their arms round her, to walk away with her, to beam flatteringly, to be her special friend.
She held quite a court under the huge pine trees at the side of the playground. Nudging,
giggling together, the little girls pressed up close. And the only two who stayed outside
the ring were the two who were always outside, the little Kelveys. They knew better than
to come anywhere near the Burnells.
For the fact was, the school the Burnell children went to was not at all the kind of place
their parents would have chosen if there had been any choice. But there was none. It
was the only school for miles. And the consequence was all the children of the
neighbourhood, the Judge's little girls, the doctor's daughters, the store-keeper's
children, the milkman's, were forced to mix together. Not to speak of there being an
equal number of rude, rough little boys as well. But the line had to be drawn somewhere.
It was drawn at the Kelveys. Many of the children, including the Burnells, were not
allowed even to speak to them. They walked past the Kelveys with their heads in the air,
and as they set the fashion in all matters of behaviour, the Kelveys were shunned by
everybody. Even the teacher had a special voice for them, and a special smile for the
other children when Lil Kelvey came up to her desk with a bunch of dreadfully commonlooking flowers.
They were the daughters of a spry, hardworking little washerwoman, who went about
from house to house by the day. This was awful enough. But where was Mr. Kelvey ?
Nobody knew for certain. But everybody said he was in prison. So they were the
daughters of a washerwoman and a gaolbird. Very nice company for other people's
children! And they looked it. Why Mrs. Kelvey made them so conspicuous was hard to
understand. The truth was they were dressed in " bits " given to her by the people for
whom she worked. Lil, for instance, who was a stout, plain child, with big freckles, came
to school in a dress made from a green art-serge table-cloth of the Burnells', with red
plush sleeves from the Logans' curtains. Her hat, perched on top of her high forehead,
was a grown-up woman's hat, once the property of Miss Lecky, the postmistress. It was
turned up at the back and trimmed with a large scarlet quill. What a little guy she looked !
It was impossible not to laugh. And her little sister, our Else, wore a long white dress,
rather like a nightgown, and a pair of little boy's boots. But whatever our Else wore she
would have looked strange. She was a tiny wishbone of a child, with cropped hair and
enormous solemn eyes—a little white owl. Nobody had ever seen her smile ; she
scarcely ever spoke. She went through life holding on to Lil, with a piece of Lil's skirt
screwed up in her hand. Where Lil went, our Else followed. In the playground, on the
road going to and from school, there was Lil marching in front and our Else holding on
behind. Only when she wanted anything, or when she was out of breath, our Else gave
Lil a tug, a twitch, and Lil stopped and turned round. The Kelveys never failed to
understand each other.

9. Now they hovered at the edge ; you couldn't stop them listening. When the little girls
turned round and sneered, Lil, as usual, gave her silly, shamefaced smile, but our Else
only looked.
And Isabel's voice, so very proud, went on telling. The carpet made a great sensation,
but so did the beds with real bedclothes, and the stove with an oven door.
When she finished Kezia broke in. " You've forgotten the lamp, Isabel."
" Oh, yes," said Isabel, " and there's a teeny little lamp, all made of yellow glass, with a
white globe that stands on the dining-room table. You couldn't tell it from a real one."
" The lamp's best of all," cried Kezia. She thought Isabel wasn't making half enough of
the little lamp. But nobody paid any attention. Isabel was choosing the two who were to
come back with them that afternoon and see it. She chose Emmie Cole and Lena Logan.
But when the others knew they were all to have a chance, they couldn't be nice enough
to Isabel. One by one they put their arms round Isabel's waist and walked her off. They
had something to whisper to her, a secret. " Isabel's my friend."
Only the little Kelveys moved away forgotten ; there was nothing more for them to hear.
Days passed, and as more children saw the doll's house, the fame of it spread. It
became the one subject, the rage. The one question was, " Have you seen Burnells'
doll's house ? Oh, ain't it lovely ! " " Haven't you seen it ? Oh, I say ! "
Even the dinner hour was given up to talking about it. The little girls sat under the pines
eating their thick mutton sandwiches and big slabs of johnny cake spread with butter.
While always, as near as they could get, sat the Kelveys, our Else holding on to Lil,
listening too, while they chewed their jam sandwiches out of a newspaper soaked with
large red blobs. " Mother," said Kezia, " can't I ask the Kelveys just once ? "
" Certainly not, Kezia."
" But why not ? "
" Run away, Kezia ; you know quite well why not."
At last everybody had seen it except them. On that day the subject rather flagged. It was
the dinner hour. The children stood together under the pine trees, and suddenly, as they
looked at the Kelveys eating out of their paper, always by themselves, always listening,
they wanted to be horrid to them. Emmie Cole started the whisper.
" Lil Kelvey's going to be a servant when she grows up."
" O-oh, how awful! " said Isabel Burnell, and she made eyes at Emmie.
Emmie swallowed in a very meaning way and nodded to Isabel as she'd seen her
mother do on those occasions.
" It's true—it's true—it's true," she said.
Then Lena Logan's little eyes snapped. " Shall I ask her ? " she whispered.
" Bet you don't," said Jessie May.
" Pooh, I'm not frightened," said Lena. Suddenly she gave a little squeal and danced in
front of the other girls. " Watch! Watch me ! Watch me now! " said Lena. And sliding,
gliding, dragging one foot, giggling behind her hand, Lena went over to the Kelveys.
Lil looked up from her dinner. She wrapped the rest quickly away. Our Else stopped
chewing. What was coming now ?
" Is it true you're going to be a servant when you grow up, Lil Kelvey ? " shrilled Lena.
Dead silence. But instead of answering, Lil only gave her silly, shamefaced smile. She
didn't seem to mind the question at all. What a sell for Lena ! The girls began to titter.
Lena couldn't stand that. She put her hands on her hips; she shot forward. " Yah, yer
father's in prison ! " she hissed, spitefully.
This was such a marvellous thing to have said that the little girls rushed away in a body,
deeply, deeply excited, wild with joy. Someone found a long rope, and they began
skipping. And never did they skip so high, run in and out so fast, or do such daring things
as on that morning.

10. In the afternoon Pat called for the Burnell children with the buggy and they drove home.
There were visitors. Isabel and Lottie, who liked visitors, went upstairs to change their
pinafores. But Kezia thieved out at the back. Nobody was about; she began to swing on
the big white gates of the courtyard. Presently, looking along the road, she saw two little
dots. They grew bigger, they were coming towards her. Now she could see that one was
in front and one close behind. Now she could see that they were the Kelveys. Kezia
stopped swinging. She slipped off the gate as if she was going to run away. Then she
hesitated. The Kelveys came nearer, and beside them walked their shadows, very long,
stretching right across the road with their heads in the buttercups. Kezia clambered back
on the gate ; she had made up her mind ; she swung out.
" Hullo," she said to the passing Kelveys.
They were so astounded that they stopped. Lil gave her silly smile. Our Else stared.
" You can come and see our doll's house if you want to," said Kezia, and she dragged
one toe on the ground. But at that Lil turned red and shook her head quickly.
" Why not ? " asked Kezia.
Lil gasped, then she said, " Your ma told our ma you wasn't to speak to us."
" Oh, well," said Kezia. She didn't know what to reply. " It doesn't matter. You can come
and see our doll's house all the same. Come on. Nobody's looking."
But Lil shook her head still harder.
" Don't you want to ? " asked Kezia.
Suddenly there was a twitch, a tug at Lil's skirt. She turned round. Our Else was looking
at her with big, imploring eyes ; she was frowning ; she wanted to go. For a moment Lil
looked at our Else very doubtfully. But then our Else twitched her skirt again. She started
forward. Kezia led the way. Like two little stray cats they followed across the courtyard to
where the doll's house stood.
" There it is," said Kezia.
There was a pause. Lil breathed loudly, almost snorted ; our Else was still as stone.
" I'll open it for you," said Kezia kindly. She undid the hook and they looked inside.
" There's the drawing-room and the dining-room, and that's the——"
" Kezia ! "
Oh, what a start they gave !
"Kezia!"
It was Aunt Beryl's voice. They turned round. At the back door stood Aunt Beryl, staring
as if she couldn't believe what she saw.
" How dare you ask the little Kelveys into the courtyard ? " said her cold, furious voice. "
You know as well as I do, you're not allowed to talk to them. Run away, children, run
away at once. And don't come back again," said Aunt Beryl. And she stepped into the
yard and shooed them out as if they were chickens.
" Off you go immediately! " she called, cold and proud.
They did not need telling twice. Burning with shame, shrinking together, Lil huddling
along like her mother, our Else dazed, somehow they crossed the big courtyard and
squeezed through the white gate.
" Wicked, disobedient little girl! " said Aunt Beryl bitterly to Kezia, and she slammed the
doll's house to.
The afternoon had been awful. A letter had come from Willie Brent, a terrifying,
threatening letter, saying if she did not meet him that evening in Pulman's Bush, he'd
come to the front door and ask the reason why! But now that she had frightened those
little rats of Kelveys and given Kezia a good scolding, her heart felt lighter. That ghastly
pressure was gone. She went back to the house humming.
When the Kelveys were well out of sight of Burnells', they sat down to rest on a big red
drainpipe by the side of the road. Lil's cheeks were still burning ; she took off the hat with

11. the quill and held it on her knee. Dreamily they looked over the hay paddocks, past the
creek, to the group of wattles where Logan's cows stood waiting to be milked. What were
their thoughts? Presently our Else nudged up close to her sister. But now she had
forgotten the cross lady. She put out a finger and stroked her sister's quill; she smiled
her rare smile.
" I seen the little lamp," she said, softly.
Then both were silent once more.
The Doll's House was featured as The Short Story of the Day on Mon, Jul 01, 2013