A JOURNEY NORTH Milly and Oliver lived at Willingham, a little town in Oxfordshire, as I have already told you.

Their father was a doctor, and they lived in an old-fashioned house, in a street, with a long shady garden stretching away behind it.

Milly and Oliver loved their father, and whenever he put his brown face inside the nursery door, two pairs of little feet went running to meet him, and two pairs of little hands pulled him eagerly into the room.

But they saw him very seldom; whereas their mother was always with them, teaching them their lessons, playing with them in the garden, telling them stories, mending their frocks, tucking them up in their snug little beds at night, sometimes praising them, sometimes scolding them; always loving and looking after them.

Milly and Olly honestly believed that theirs was the best mother in the whole world.
Nobody else could find out such nice plays, or tell them such wonderful stories, or dress dolls half so well.