So for the last few days we were constantly together, and Fraeulein had an unexpected holiday.

Jill worked like a horse in my service, and only broke one Dresden group; she came to me half crying with the fragment in her hand,--the poor little shepherdess had lost her head as well as her crook, and the pink coat of the shepherd had an unseemly rent in it,--but I only laughed at the disaster, and would not scold her for her awkwardness.

China had a knack of slipping through Jill's fingers; she had a loose uncertain grasp of things that were brittle and delicate; she had not learned to control her muscles or restrain her strength.

She had a way of lifting me up when I teased her that turns me giddy to remember: I was quite a child in her hands.

She was always ashamed of herself when she had done it, and begged my pardon, and as long as she put me on my feet again I was ready to forgive anything.