l beside her, you may
be sure, to "keep her company," and help her to get through dinner by
opening her little mouth for "tastes" every now and then. But auntie had
to manage alone, after all, for of course Sybil would not leave Floss
and Carrots, and auntie sent up the very nicest things from the
dining-table for the children to eat with their tea, and Sybil did get
some "tastes," I can assure you.

And they laughed at each other in the dressing-gowns, and Floss quite
forgot that she had expected to feel shy and strange. Only when auntie
came up to the nursery again after dinner and made Floss tell her all
about the long walk in the cold and the dark, and about the "kind
porter," and the oldish-looking lady, and, further back still, about
the leaving home in the morning and how poor mamma kissed them "so many,
many times"--Floss could not help crying again a little, nor could
auntie either. And though Carrots and Sybil did not cry, their little
faces looked very solemn and as if they almost thought they _should_
cry, as they sat side by side on the rug in front of the high nursery
guard, Carrots in the funny red-flannel dressing-gown which made him
look _so_ "old fashioned," and Sybil in her white embroidery and rose
ribbons, crumpling them all up "anyhow" in a way which really went to
Floss's heart, though auntie did not seem to mind.

Then came bed-time. Such a nice bed-time, for auntie had prepared for
them two dear little rooms, with a door between, that they should not
feel far away from each other. And though it was the very first time in
Carrots' life that he had gone to bed without kind old nurse to tuck
him up, he did not feel unhappy, for Floss reminded him what a good
thing it was that their mother had nurse with her now she was ill, and
besides, Sybil's French maid Denise was _very_ kind and merry, and not
at all "stuck up" or grand.

And the waking the next morning!

Who does not know those first wakings in a strange place! Sometimes so
pleasant, sometimes _so_ sad, but never, I think, without a strange
interestingness of their own. This waking was pleasant, though so
strange. The sun was shining for one thing--a great thing, I think I
should call it, and the children felt it to be so.

They woke about the same time and called out to each other, and then
Floss got out of bed and went to see how Carrots was looking, after all
his adventures.

"You haven't caught cold I hope, Carrots," she said in a m