“Yes, I’m giving you the Lamb for yourself—­to keep forever,” said the sailor.  “I wouldn’t dream of taking her on a sea voyage with me.”

So you see the Lamb need not have been uneasy after all.  But of course she did not know that when the sailor bought her.

Mirabell stroked the soft wool of her new toy Lamb.  She wheeled it across the floor again, and the sailor watched her.  Then, all of a sudden, the door of the playroom was opened with such a bang that it struck the Lamb and sent her spinning across the floor, upside down, into a corner.

“Oh, Arnold!” cried Mirabell to her brother, who had come in so roughly.  “Look what you did!  You’ve broken my Lamb on Wheels!”

CHAPTER IV

SLIDING DOWNHILL

Arnold, who was a boy about as old as Dick, the brother of Dorothy, stopped short after slamming open the playroom door.  He looked at his sister, then at the Lamb lying upside down in a corner, and then he looked at the jolly sailor.

“What did I do?” asked Arnold, who was taken by surprise by the way his sister called to him.

“You broke my new toy, the Lamb on Wheels,” answered the little girl.  “Oh, I hope she isn’t killed!” and running to the corner, she picked up her new toy.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to do that,” said Arnold, who was sorry enough for the accident.  “I didn’t know you were in here,” he went on.  “I came to get my toy fire engine.  I’m going to play with Dick and his express wagon.  Where’d you get your Lamb on Wheels, Mirabell?”

“Uncle Tim brought her to me,” answered the little girl.

Mirabell carefully looked at her plaything.  And she was very glad to find out that no damage seemed to have been done.  None of the four wheels was broken, the little wooden platform on which the Lamb stood was not splintered, and there was not so much as a bruise on the little black nose of the Lamb herself.

“I guess she is so soft and woolly that she didn’t get hurt much,” Mirabell said, turning the Lamb over and over.  “She’s so fat and soft—­ like a rubber ball,” she added.

“I’m glad of that,” said Arnold.  “Next time I come into a room I’ll look near the door to see that there isn’t a Lamb behind it”

“That’s the boy!” exclaimed Uncle Tim.  “And here is something I brought for you, Arnold.  I didn’t buy it in a toy store.  It’s a little wooden puzzle I whittled with my knife out of a bit of wood when I was on the ship.”

Arnold looked at what Uncle Tim gave him.  It was a puzzle, made of some wooden rings on a stick, and the trick was to get the rings off the stick.  Arnold tried and tried but could not do it until his uncle showed him how the trick was done.  Then it was easy.

“Oh, thank you!” cried the boy, when he had learned how to do the trick himself.  “I’m going over and show Dick this puzzle.  I don’t believe he can do it.  Want to come, Mirabell, and show Dorothy your Lamb on Wheels?”