Violet's Idol (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1870 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII. VIOLET HUMBLED. More than a month had gone hy since Violet had this talk with her mother, when, one afternoon, she and Lola and Baby Bertie were at play in one of their favourite spots. It was no wonder that they liked it; for what a lovely place it was It was by the side of a little brook which ran by their father's grounds; the prettiest, merriest, little brook that ever was seen. All the long summer day it murmured with sparkling music over and among the stones which lay in its way; sweet, wild flowers grew in mossy nooks along its banks, and the broad, green branches which stretched across it made rippling shadows in the sunshine. Two or three great oaks, one of them with a hollow trunk, grew beside it; and beneath and within this last, Violet and Lola had their "paper-doll baby-house." Many and many a family of paper dolls had lived and, alas perished, in this home: for at the best, the mossy hollow in the oak was but a damp dwelling-place; and after a summer shower or a foggy morning, our little girls were sure to find their frail dollies in rather a bad condition. But that did not matter much, for paper dolls were easily replaced; and it was almost as much fun to make them as it was to play with them. Just below this pleasant, shady playground, a large stone barred the way of the running water; and while it flowed on as merrily as ever on the one side, on the other it turned into a quiet, shallow pool below the green bank, which gave back, like a mirror, the waving grasses and leaves above it. A little farther down yet, the stream was crossed by a pretty rustic bridge; but this bridge, as "well as the meadow beyond, was forbidden ground to the children. Forbidden, that was, to Lola and Violet. Aleck, a large, strong boy, was able to k...