he
time we get there; and I don't like to be away when he comes. Mother
bade me not. She said he'd miss her worse if he didn't find me. You
see, I've got to do for Mother now, both for Father and the children."

Alice Mount thought it very funny to hear this little mite talking about
"the children," as if she were not a child at all.

"Well, tarry a minute till I tie on my hood," said Rose. "I'll be ready
before you can say, `This is the house that Jack built.'"

"What do you with the babe, little maid, when you go forth?" asked
Alice.

"Baby?" said Cissy, looking up. "Oh, we leave her with Ursula Felstede,
next door. She's quite safe till we come back."

Rose now came in from the inner room, where she had been putting on her
hood and mantle. There were no bonnets then. What women called bonnets
in those days were close thick hoods, made of silk, velvet, fur, or
woollen stuff of some sort. Nor had they either shawls or jackets--only
loose mantles, for out-door wear. Rose took up the jar of meal.

"Please, I can carry it on one side," said Cissy rather eagerly.

"Thou mayest carry thyself," said Rose. "That's plenty. I haven't
walked five miles to-day. I'm a bit stronger than thou, too."

Little Will had not needed telling that he was no longer wanted to carry
the jar; he was already off after wild flowers, as if the past five
miles had been as many yards, though he had assured Cissy at least a
dozen times as they came along that he did not know how he was ever to
get home, and as they were entering Bentley had declared himself unable
to take another step. Cissy shook her small head with the air of a
prophetess.

"Will shouldn't say such things!" said she. "He said he couldn't walk a
bit further--that I should have to carry him as well as the jar--and I
don't know how I could, unless I'd poured the meal out and put him in,
and he'd never have gone, I'm sure; and now, do but look at him after
those buttercups!"

"He didn't mean to tell falsehoods," said Rose. "He was tired, I dare
say. Lads will be lads, thou knowest."

"Oh dear, I don't know how I'm to bring up these children to be good
people!" said Cissy, as gravely as if she had been their grandmother.
"Ursula says children are great troubles, and I'm sure it's true. If
there's any place where Will should be, that's just where he always
isn't; and if there's one spot where he shouldn't be, that's the place
where you commonly find him. B