this big house, and to-morrow they would
set off in the great ship to cross the sea.

The mention of the ship fortunately gave a new turn to Baby's thoughts;
and he allowed Lisa to take him upstairs and warm him well before a good
fire before she undressed him and put him to bed. The other children
thought it great fun to sleep in strange rooms, in beds quite unlike
those they had at home, and to have to hunt for their nightgowns and
brushes and sponges in two or three _wrong_ carpet bags before they came
to the right one; but Baby's spirits were rather depressed, and it was
not easy to keep him from crying in the sad little way he had when his
feelings were touched.

"He is tired, poor little chap," said auntie, as she kissed him for
good-night. "It is ever so much later than he has ever been up before.
It is nearly ten."

"Him _were_ up till ten o'clock on Kissmass," said Herr Baby,
brightening up. "Him were up _dedful_ late, till, till, p'raps till near
twenty o'clock."

Auntie would have liked to laugh, but she took care not, for when Baby
was in this sort of humour there was no telling whether other people's
laughing might not make him take to crying, so she just said,

"Indeed! That must have been _very_ late; well, go to sleep now, and
sleep till twenty o'clock to-morrow morning, if you like. We don't need
to start early," she added, turning to Lisa; and I think poor Lisa was
not sorry to hear it!

If I were to go on telling you, bit by bit, all about the journey, and
everything that happened big and little, it would take a good while, and
I don't know that you would find it very interesting. Perhaps it is
better to take a jump, as people do in real big story books, and to go
on with Herr Baby's adventures a few days later, when he, and Denny, and
Fritz, and Celia, and Lisa, and mother, and auntie, and grandfather, and
the "bully," and the "calanies," and Tim, and Peepy-Snoozle, and Linley,
mother's maid, and Peters, grandfather's man, and I forget if there was
any one else, but I think not; and all the boxes and carpet-bags, and
railway-rugs, were safely arrived at Santino, the pretty little town
with mountains on one side and the sea on the other, where they were all
going to spend the winter. I must not forget to tell you one thing,
however, which, I daresay, some of you who may have crossed "over the
sea," and _not_ found it very delightful, may be anxious to know about.
I mean about the voyage in the