And poor Mrs.
Bundle, sitting safely at home in her rocking-chair, endured all the
fears from which I was free.
"Now look, my deary," said she one day; "don't you go turning your
sweet face round to look up at the nursery windows when you're a
riding off. I can see your curls, bless them! and that's enough for
me. Keep yourself still, love, and look where you're a going, for in
all reason you've plenty to do with that. And don't you go a waving
your precious hand, for it gives me such a turn to think you've let
go, and have only got one hand to hold on with, and just turning the
corner too, and the pony a shaking its tail, and shifting about with
its back legs, till how you don't slip off on one side passes me
altogether."
"Why, you don't think I hold on by my hands, do you?" I cried.
"And what should you hold on with?" said Mrs. Bundle. "Many's the
light cart I've rode in, but never let go my hold, unless with one
hand, to save a bag or a bandbox. And though it's jolting, I'm sure a
light cart's nothing to pony-back for starts and unexpectedness."
I tried in vain to make Nurse Bundle like my pony.
"I've seen plenty of ponies!" she said, severely; by which she meant
not that she had seen many, but that what she had seen of them had
been more than enough.
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