Anytime Tales Read Online Free PDF Page B

do with her they spoke at once. “Ina! Remember! Don’t interfere!”

    Then Ina would go red and say, “Sorry! I nearly forgot!”
    In a week’s time her nose was almost the right size again, and soon it will be the same pretty little nose she had before.
    But goodness knows how long the magic will last! She will have to be careful all her life not to interfere just in
case
her nose shoots out again! Poor Ina! She still looks a bit queer, but I hope that next time I see her she will look her old pretty little self._______

Cross Aunt Tabitha
    Aunt tabitha was rather a strict old lady. When her nieces went to stay with her, they were very careful how they behaved. They said “please” and “thank you” when they should, and they always opened the door for Aunt Tabitha and fetched her footstool as soon as she sat in her chair.
    When Phyllis and Jane went to stay with her, they felt rather frightened. They did hope they would do everything they should. They meant to try very hard.
    But Phyllis was rather a noisy child and banged doors behind her. So Aunt Tabitha was cross and spoke sharply.
    And then Jane upset her tea all over the clean tablecloth and that made Aunt Tabitha cross too. They went to bed the first night feeling rather upset.
    ” I hope Aunt Tabitha isn’t going to be cross all the time,” said Phyllis.
    “I shall go home if she is!” said Jane. “I don’t like her.”
    “Well, we’ll see what happens to-morrow,” said Phyllis. “I shall try my hardest not to bang doors.”
    She didn’t bang a door---but she forgot to wipe her feet on the mat and brought mud in all over the blue hall carpet. Aunt Tabitha frowned when she saw it.
    “Get the dust-pan and brush and sweep up the mud as soon as it is dry,” she said.
    And then Jane knocked against a little table, upset a glass vase and down it went with a crash. It broke into about a hundred pieces!
    Aunt Tabitha was very angry. “If you are clumsy again I shall send you up to bed,” she said.
    Poor Phyllis and Jane! It was really very difficult for them to be sweet and smiling to some one who scolded them so hard. But they knew that Aunt Tabitha was old, and Mother had said that old people were not so patient as younger ones.
    “She’s nice when she smiles,” said Phyllis. “But I wish she’d smile oftener.”
    “I think we’ll go home,” said Jane, who was rather afraid of being sent to bed if she did anything else to displease her aunt. “I’ll pack our bag. We can slip out of the house and go home without anyone knowing.”
    Just then the maid came in, looking very pale. “Please, Miss Phyllis and Miss Jane,” she said. “I feel ill. Do you think you could manage to get your aunt’s tea if I leave it ready?”
    “Of course,” said Jane at once. “Go and lie down, Mary. You do look ill. We can manage.”
    “I meant to finish turning out your aunt’s little sewing-room,” said Mary. “I’m in the middle of it now. But I feel so queer I really think I’d better leave it till tomorrow.”
    The maid went to her room. The two girls looked at one another. “We can’t slip home now,” said Jane. “It would be mean. We must stay and help.”
    “Do you think we’d better try and finish turning out Aunt Tabitha’s sewing-room?” said Phyllis. “It would be kind to Mary to do it. And Aunt Tabitha does hate to see a room upside down. Let’s do it!”
    So the two girls got dusters, brooms and mops, and went to finish turning out the sewing-room. Aunt Tabitha was having a nap in the drawing-room, and didn’t know what they were doing at all.
    The room was upside down, for Mary had been in the middle of turning it out. The girls swept the ceiling free of cobwebs. They swept the carpets. They polished the boards. Then they wondered if they ought to take the chair cushions into the garden and bang them to get rid of the dust.
    “Well, we might as well be thorough!” said Jane. “Look—the seat of this chair comes out.