grew rather anxious about her.

"'We must do something about Lena,' she said to her father, 'she is not
getting strong again. The doctor says she should have a change of air,
but I don't see how to manage it. I cannot leave home while my mother is
so ill,'--for Lena's grandmother lived with them and was rather an old
and delicate lady--'and you, of course, cannot.'

"Lena's father was always very busy. It was seldom he could leave home,
not very often, indeed, that he had time to see much of his little girl,
even at home. But he was very fond of her, and anxious to do everything
for her good. So he and her mother talked it well over together, and at
last they thought of a good plan, and when it was all settled her mother
told Lena about it.

"She called her to her one day when the little girl was sitting rather
sadly trying to amuse herself with her dolls. But her head ached, and
all her ideas seemed to have gone out of her mind. She could not think
of any new plays for them, and she began to fancy their faces looked
stupid.

"'I almost think I'm getting too big for dolls,' she was saying to
herself, when she heard her mother's voice calling her. And she slowly
got down from her chair and went up-stairs to the drawing-room, where
her mother was sitting writing.

"'Are you very tired, dear?' she said kindly.

"'Yes, mamma, I think so,' said Lena, as if she didn't much care whether
she was tired or not.

"'You seem often tired now, my poor little girl,' said her mother. 'I
think it is that you have not got properly strong since you were ill.
The doctor says a change of air would be the best thing for you, but
just now neither your father nor I can leave home. Would you mind very
much going away for a little without us?'

"'Would it be very far, mamma?' said Lena. She liked the idea of going
away, she had not often left home, and she had a great fancy for
travelling, but still you can understand to go quite away without either
her father or mother seemed rather lonely."

"Hadn't she a nice nurse?" asked Maudie.

"No, she hadn't a nurse quite all for herself. She was the only child,
you know, and her father and mother were not very rich people, so the
maid who waited on her had other work to do too. Her mother went on to
explain to her that it was not to any very far-away place they thought
of her going. It was to a pretty little sheltered village near the sea,
where in an old-fashioned farmhouse there lived a