ed to be allowed to hold him in their arms, so that
they both tumbled him back on to nurse's lap in a hurry, and called him
"a cross, ugly little thing." Only when little Floss sat down on the
floor, spreading out her knees with great solemnity, and smoothing her
pinafore to make a nice place for baby, and nurse laid him carefully
down in the embrace of her tiny arms, "baby" seemed quite content. He
gave a sort of wriggle, like a dog when he has been pretending to burrow
a hole for himself in the rug, just before he settles down and shuts his
eyes, and in half a second was fast asleep.

"Baby loves Floss," said Floss gravely, and as long as nurse would let
her, till her arms really ached, there she sat on the floor, as still
as a mouse, holding her precious burden.

It was wonderful how trusty she was. And "as handy," said nurse, "indeed
far more handy than many a girl of five times her age." "I have been
thinking," she said one day to Floss's mother, "I have been thinking,
ma'am, that even if you had been going to keep an under-nurse to help
with baby, there would have been nothing for her to do. For the help I
get from Miss Flossie is really astonishing, and Master Baby is that
fond of her already, you'd hardly believe it."

And Floss's mother kissed her, and told her she was a good little soul,
and Floss felt, oh, so proud! Then a second thought struck her, "Baby
dood too, mamma," she said, staring up into her mother's face with her
bright searching grey-green eyes.

"Yes," said her mother with a little sigh, "poor baby is good too,
dear," and then she had to hurry off to a great overhauling of Jack's
shirts, which were, if possible, to be made to last him another
half-year at school.

So it came to pass that a great deal of Floss's life was spent in the
nursery with Carrots. He was better than twenty dolls, for after a while
he actually learnt, first to stand alone, and then to walk, and after a
longer while he learnt to talk, and to understand all that Floss said to
him, and by-and-by to play games with her in his baby way. And how
patient Floss was with him! It was no wonder he loved her.

This chapter has seemed almost more about Floss than Carrots you will
say, perhaps, but I couldn't tell you anything of Carrots' history
without telling you a great deal about Floss too, so I daresay you won't
mind. I daresay too you will not care to hear much more about Carrots
when he was a baby, for, after all, babies a