[iii]
Three Little Maids

ETHEL TURNER
(Mrs. H. R. CURLEWIS)

AUTHOR OF ‘SEVEN LITTLE AUSTRALIANS,’ ‘THE LITTLE LARRIKIN,’
‘THE CAMP AT WANDINONG,’ ETC.

“O to be young again!

O to have dreams and dreams!

And to talk in the gardens of Wonderland

With stars and flowers and streams!”

W. A. MacKenzie.

WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO

[v]
TO
MY TINY DAUGHTER

Here is a chain for you, sweet,

Hold up your soft hands to catch it;

Pansy and white marguerite,

You will think nothing can match it.

But you will say, Are they true?

All of the flowers in the chain, dear?

Did they all grow up with you,

Or some of them just in your brain, dear?

Count true the white marguerite,

Pansies—as false I must own them.

Life, it may well be, my sweet,

Had not so fair to you grown them.

E. S. C.

Mosman’s Bay
Sydney

CHAP.

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