_Fanny._ And so, Laura, you have really spent this whole vacation without a bit of amusement? I must say I think there is a little affectation in that. _Laura._ Oh no, indeed! I do not like to sit still from morning till night any better than you do; and mother would not let me if I did. I have taken a long, brisk walk every day. _Fanny._ What, alone? I hate walking alone. _Laura._ Not alone, very often; sister Helen sometimes walks over the bridge into the country with me, and we get wild flowers, and she explains all about them; that we call going botanizing, and it makes the walks much more pleasant. It really made me stare when she pulled a common head of clover to pieces and showed me how curiously it is made up of ever so many florets, as she calls them; and even the dandelion is very queer. _Susan._ And did you go botanizing in the rain too? _Laura._ No; of course we could not stir out then. _Susan._ Then I rather think you found the last three days as dull as any of us. _Fanny._ Not she, Susan. No doubt it was very pleasant to sit perched up at the window all day, for the passers to admire her industry. _Laura._ O, Fanny, how can you be so uncharitable! if you had not been at the window so much yourself you would not have seen me. _Fanny._ But I was not making a display of myself, with a book or a needle forever in my hand. _Laura._ No, Fanny; if you had been occupied, however, you would not have been making such unkind remarks about your neighbors, would you? Did you not observe that my mother sat at the window with me? The reason was, we cannot see to work in any other part of the room when it is cloudy. You know our little breakfast-room has only one window. _Susan._ So for the last three days you have been reading and poking your needle in and out from morning till night? Well! it would be the death of me. (_Gaping._) _Laura._ Why no; I tell you I do not like sitting still forever, any more than you do; I like to use my feet every day as well as my hands, and I presume they expect it. Too much stitching gives me a stitch in my side; so when rainy weather came I played battledoor and shuttlecock with father when he came home to dinner, and one day we kept it up to five hundred and two. Then before tea I used to skip rope along the upper entry sometimes; and then there was something else--but I suppose Fanny will tell all the girls in school and make them laugh at me; but I really enjoyed it best of anything. _Fanny._ What was it? tell us, do. I hate secrets. _Laura._ You like to find them out, I am sure; but it is no mighty secret, after all; and I don’t know why I need be ashamed to tell, for my father and mother made no objection. I went up into the nursery every evening before the little ones went to bed, and played blind man’s buff with them. _Fanny._ And could you take any pleasure in it? _Laura._ To be sure.