That was an extraordinary frog! You should have seen nurse's start when Olly hid himself in the passage and sent the frog hopping and squeaking through the open door of the night nursery, where nurse was sitting sewing; and as for cook, when the creature came flopping over her kitchen floor she very nearly spoilt the hash she was making for dinner by dropping a whole pepper-box into the middle of it! There was no end to the fun to be got out of froggy, and Olly amused himself with it the whole of the morning, while Milly went through long stories with her dolls upstairs, helped every now and then by Aunt Emma, who sat knitting and talking to mother.
At dinner the children had to sit quiet while Mr.and Mrs.Norton and Aunt Emma talked.

Father and mother had been almost as much cheered up by Aunt Emma's coming as the children themselves, and now the dinner-table was lively with pleasant talk; talk about books, and talk about pictures, and talk about foreign places, and talk about the mountains and the people living near Ravensnest, many of whom mother had known when she was a little girl.

Milly, who was old enough to listen, could only understand a little bit here and there; but there was always Aunt Emma's friendly gentle face to look at, and her soft old hand in its black mitten, to slip her own little fingers into; while Olly was so taken up with the prospects of the black-currant pudding which he had seen cook making in the morning, and the delight of it when it came, that it seemed no trouble to him to sit still.
As for the rain, there was not much difference.

Perhaps there were a few breaks in the clouds, and it might be beating a little less heavily on the glass conservatory outside the dining-room, still, on the whole, the weather was much the same as it had been.

It was wonderful to see how little notice the children had taken of it since Aunt Emma came, and when they escorted her upstairs after dinner, they quite forgot to rush to the window and look out, as they had been doing the last three days at every possible opportunity.
The children got her safe into a chair, and then Olly brought a stool to one side of her, and Milly brought a stool to the other.
"_Now,_ can you remember about old Mother Quiverquake ?" said Olly, resting his little sunburnt chin on Aunt Emma's knee, and looking up to her with eager eyes.
[Illustration: "'Suppose we have a story-telling game'"] "Well, I daresay I shall begin to remember about her presently; but suppose, children, we have a _story-telling game_.