il's father, as the door closed after
the children.

"It is about Lucy," said auntie; "she is much worse; _very_ ill indeed.
She has caught cold somehow, and Frank seems almost to have lost hope
already."

Two or three tears rolled down auntie's face as she spoke. For a minute
or two Sybil's father said nothing.

"How about telling the children?" he asked at last.

"That's just it," replied auntie. "Frank leaves it to me to tell them or
not, as I think best. He would not let Cecil or Louise write, as he
thought if it had to be told I had better do so as gently as I could, by
word of mouth. But they _must_ be told--they are such quick children, I
believe Floss suspects it already. And if--and if the next news should
be _worse_," continued auntie with a little sob, "I would never forgive
myself for not having prepared them, and they would be full of
self-reproach for having been happy and merry as usual. Floss would say
she should have known it by instinct."

"Would they feel it so much?--could they realise it? They are so young,"
said Sybil's father.

Auntie shook her head. "Not too young to feel it terribly," she said.
"It is much better to tell them. I could not hide the sorrow in my face
from those two honest pairs of eyes, for one thing."

"Well, you know best," said her husband.

A sad telling it was, and the way in which the children took it touched
auntie's loving heart to the quick. They were so quiet and "pitiful," as
little Sybil said. Floss's face grew white, for, with a child's hasty
rush at conclusions, she fancied at first that auntie was paving the way
for the worst news of all.

"Is mamma _dead_?" she whispered, and auntie's "Oh no, no, darling. Not
so bad as that," seemed to give her a sort of crumb of hope, even before
she had heard all.

And Carrots stood beside auntie's knee, clasping his little mother
Floss's hand tight, and looking up in auntie's face with those wonderful
eyes of his, which auntie had said truly one _could_ not deceive; and
when he had been told all there was to tell, he just said softly, "Oh
_poor_ mamma! Auntie, she kissened us so _many_ times!"

And then, which auntie was on the whole glad of, the three children sat
down on the rug together and cried; Sybil, in her sympathy, as heartily
as the others, while she kept kissing and petting them, and calling them
by every endearing name she could think of.

"When will there be another letter, auntie?" said Floss.

"Th