`` I really believe I have got Henry 's six wives into my head right at last . Two Annes , three Katherines , and one Jane . Now I 've seen where they lived and heard their stories , I quite feel as if I knew them , '' said Merry , shaking the threads off her work before she folded it up to carry home . '' ` King Henry the Eighth to six spouses was wedded , One died , one survived , two divorced , two beheaded , ' was all I knew about them before . Poor things , what a bad time they did have , '' added Jill , patting down the red braid , which would pucker a bit at the corners . `` Katherine Parr had the best of it , because she outlived the old tyrant and so kept her head on , '' said Molly , winding the thread round her last button , as if bound to fasten it on so firmly that nothing should decapitate that . `` I used to think I 'd like to be a queen or a great lady , and wear velvet and jewels , and live in a palace , but now I do n't care much for that sort of splendor . I like to make things pretty at home , and know that they all depend on me , and love me very much . Queens are not happy , and I am , '' said Merry , pausing to look at Anne Hathaway 's cottage as she put up the picture , and to wonder if it was very pleasant to have a famous man for one 's husband . `` I guess your missionarying has done you good ; mine has , and I 'm getting to have things my own way more and more every day . Miss Bat is so amiable , I hardly know her , and father tells her to ask Miss Molly when she goes to him for orders . Is n't that fun ? '' laughed Molly , in high glee , at the agreeable change . `` I like it ever so much , but I do n't want to stay so all my days . I mean to travel , and just as soon as I can I shall take Boo and go all round the world , and see everything , '' she added , waving her gay sack , as if it were the flag she was about to nail to the masthead of her ship . `` Well , I should like to be famous in some way , and have people admire me very much . I 'd like to act , or dance , or sing , or be what I heard the ladies at Pebbly Beach call a ` queen of society . ' But I do n't expect to be anything , and I 'm not going to worry I shall not be a Lucinda , so I ought to be contented and happy all my life , '' said Jill , who was very ambitious in spite of the newly acquired meekness , which was all the more becoming because her natural liveliness often broke out like sunshine through a veil of light clouds . If the three girls could have looked forward ten years they would have been surprised to see how different a fate was theirs from the one each had chosen , and how happy each was in the place she was called to fill . Merry was not making the old farmhouse pretty , but living in Italy , with a young sculptor for her husband , and beauty such as she never dreamed of all about her .
Molly was not travelling round the world , but contentedly keeping house for her father and still watching over XXXXX , who was becoming her pride and joy as well as care .
Boo Merry clouds girls glee liveliness place stories wives world