Excerpt from The Borrowers by Mary Norton.

Arrietty would read

to the boy—every afternoon in the long grass beyond the cherry tree. He would lie on his back and she would stand beside his shoulder and tell him when to turn the page. They were happy days to look back on afterwards, with the blue sky beyond the cherry boughs, the grasses softly stirring, and the boy's great ear listening beside her. She grew to know that ear quite well, with its curves and shadows and sunlit pinks and golds. He was very still while she read to him and always grateful. What worlds they would explore together—strange worlds to Arrietty. She learned a lot and some of the things she learned were hard to accept. She was made to realize once and for all that this earth on which they lived turning about in space did not revolve, as she had believed, for the sake of little people. "Nor for big people either," she reminded the boy when she saw his secret smile.