If a big dog trotted by,
Aunt Frances always said, hastily: "There, there, dear! That's a NICE
doggie, I'm sure. I don't believe he ever bites little girls. ... MERCY!
Elizabeth Ann, don't go near him! ... Here, darling, just get on the
other side of Aunt Frances if he scares you so" (by that time Elizabeth
Ann was always pretty well scared), "and perhaps we'd better just turn
this corner and walk in the other direction." If by any chance the dog
went in that direction too, Aunt Frances became a prodigy of valiant
protection, putting the shivering little girl behind her, threatening
the animal with her umbrella, and saying in a trembling voice, "Go away,
sir! Go AWAY!"
Or if it thundered and lightened, Aunt Frances always dropped everything
she might be doing and held Elizabeth Ann tightly in her arms until it
was all over. And at night--Elizabeth Ann did not sleep very well--when
the little girl woke up screaming with a bad dream, it was always dear
Aunt Frances who came to her bedside, a warm wrapper over her nightgown
so that she need not hurry back to her own room, a candle lighting up
her tired, kind face. She always took the little girl into her thin arms
and held her close against her thin breast. "TELL Aunt Frances all about
your naughty dream, darling," she would murmur, "so's to get it off your
mind!"
She had read in her books that you can tell a great deal about
children's inner lives by analyzing their dreams, and besides, if she
did not urge Elizabeth Ann to tell it, she was afraid the sensitive,
nervous little thing would "lie awake and brood over it.
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