The Enchanted Castle E. Nesbit (books to read fiction .txt) đ
- Author: E. Nesbit
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By E. Nesbit.
Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Dedication The Enchanted Castle I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII Colophon Uncopyright ImprintThis ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.
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To
Margaret Ostler
with love from
E. Nesbit
Peggy, you came from the heath and moor,
And you brought their airs through my open door;
You brought the blossom of youth to blow
In the Latin Quarter of Soho.
For the sake of that magic I send you here
A tale of enchantments, Peggy dear,
A bit of my work, and a bit of my heartâ ââ âŠ
The bit that you left when we had to part.
25 September 1907
Royalty Chambers, Soho, W.
The Enchanted Castle IThere were three of themâ âJerry, Jimmy, and Kathleen. Of course, Jerryâs name was Gerald, and not Jeremiah, whatever you may think; and Jimmyâs name was James; and Kathleen was never called by her name at all, but Cathy, or Catty, or Puss Cat, when her brothers were pleased with her, and Scratch Cat when they were not pleased. And they were at school in a little town in the West of Englandâ âthe boys at one school, of course, and the girl at another, because the sensible habit of having boys and girls at the same school is not yet as common as I hope it will be some day. They used to see each other on Saturdays and Sundays at the house of a kind maiden lady; but it was one of those houses where it is impossible to play. You know the kind of house, donât you? There is a sort of a something about that kind of house that makes you hardly able even to talk to each other when you are left alone, and playing seems unnatural and affected. So they looked forward to the holidays, when they should all go home and be together all day long, in a house where playing was natural and conversation possible, and where the Hampshire forests and fields were full of interesting things to do and see. Their Cousin Betty was to be there too, and there were plans. Bettyâs school broke up before theirs, and so she got to the Hampshire home first, and the moment she got there she began to have measles, so that my three couldnât go home at all. You may imagine their feelings. The thought of seven weeks at Miss Herveyâs was not to be borne, and all three wrote home and said so. This astonished their parents very much, because they had always thought it was so nice for the children to have dear Miss Herveyâs to go to. However, they were âjolly decent about it,â as Jerry said, and after a lot of letters and telegrams, it was arranged that the boys should go and stay at Kathleenâs school, where there were now no girls left and no mistresses except the French one.
âItâll be better than being at Miss Herveyâs,â said Kathleen, when the boys came round to ask Mademoiselle when it would be convenient for them to come; âand, besides, our schoolâs not half so ugly as yours. We do have tablecloths on the tables and curtains at the windows, and yours is all deal boards, and desks, and inkiness.â
When they had gone to pack their boxes Kathleen made all the rooms as pretty as she could with flowers in jam jarsâ âmarigolds chiefly, because there was nothing much else in the back garden. There were geraniums in the front garden, and calceolarias and lobelias; of course, the children were not allowed to pick these.
âWe ought to have some sort of play to keep us going through the holidays,â said Kathleen, when tea was over, and she had unpacked and arranged the boys clothes in the painted chests of drawers, feeling very grownup and careful as she neatly laid the different sorts of clothes in tidy little heaps in the drawers. âSuppose we write a book.â
âYou couldnât,â said Jimmy.
âI didnât mean me, of course,â said Kathleen, a little injured; âI meant us.â
âToo much fag,â said Gerald briefly.
âIf we wrote a book,â Kathleen persisted, âabout what the insides of schools really are like, people would read it and say how clever we were.â
âMore likely expel us,â said Gerald. âNo; weâll have an out-of-doors gameâ âbandits, or something like that. It wouldnât be bad if we could get a cave and keep stores in it, and have our meals there.â
âThere arenât any caves,â said Jimmy, who was fond of contradicting everyone. âAnd, besides, your precious Mamselle wonât let us go out alone, as likely as not.â
âOh, weâll see about that,â said Gerald. âIâll go and talk to her like a father.â
âLike that?â Kathleen pointed the thumb of scorn at him, and he looked in the glass.
âTo brush his hair and his clothes and to wash his face and hands was to our hero but the work of a moment,â said Gerald, and
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