umble so. _Illnesses_ come through nobody's fault! And
I should be so thankful that Hebe is getting better that nothing else
should seem anything. But it is real practical difficulty about money
just now that I mind the most. You see, dear, I have to pay all your
teachers just the same. It wouldn't be fair to Miss Stirling or any of
them to stop just because the girls have got ill.'

I felt very sorry, and I didn't really know what to propose.

'Isn't there any one you could ask about those places?' I said.
'Mightn't we perhaps get lodgings at a farmhouse, where it wouldn't be
at all dear? Not grand ones, you know, mums. And we'd all wait on
ourselves a good deal, so that nurse could help the farmer's wife to
cook for us if she needed. Nurse loves cooking.'

Mums' face cleared a little. She does worry sometimes more than she
needs to.

'That would be very nice, Jack,' she said. 'I wonder if there's anybody
who could tell us about where such a place is likely to be found.'

'We'd live quite plainly,' I went on. 'It would be fun to be almost like
poor children for a while. I don't mean _poor_, poor children, but like
rather well-off cottage children.'

'H-m,' said mother. 'I don't think you'd find it as amusing as you
think. However, you would of course have to live plainly in some ways,
but still it must be a comfortable sort of place. It would not do to run
any risks for the girls after their illness.'

Just at that moment Alfred brought in a note that had come, and 'they,'
he said--why do servants always say 'they' for a messenger when there's
only one?--'were waiting for an answer.'

The note was from young Mrs. Chasserton, Cousin Dorothea. She had just
come back to London, she said, and she was so sorry to hear how ill
"the children" had all been'--thank you, all but one, if you please.
And would mother come to see her? She had got a horrid cold, and
couldn't go out, but she wasn't a bit afraid of whooping-cough--she'd
had it. 'Please come to tea this afternoon, and bring any child that's
well enough to go out.'

'Oh, I can't,' said mother, 'I've too much on my mind!'

'Oh, do go,' I said, 'it'll do you good. You've not had the least little
change for ever so long. And let me come with you, mums, as the others
mayn't go out yet. I like Cousin Dorothea; and perhaps she could tell us
of some farmhouse, as she's always lived in the country.'

So mother wrote a word to say she'd go.

And that afternoon we d