ome home
and tell me all about her.'

'Shall I give her your love and a kiss when I see her?'

'Yes,' said the young man, smiling down upon the earnest child beside
him.

A rush of feet behind them, and Molly and Douglas came tearing
downstairs.

'Here she is! Where have you been? Bobby has cut his head open, and
Sophy has rushed to nurse, and nurse is scolding away, so we came off.
Mr. Roper, do you know we're going away to-morrow?'

'And will you come and see us one day, Mr. Roper?'

'Mr. Roper, does every farmer in the country go about in his
night-shirt? Douglas says they do, and we have pictures of them.'

'And are there stags and wild boar to hunt? Do tell us.'

Mr. Roper made short work of these questions, and departed. He was a
reserved, reticent man, and did not understand the boisterous spirits
of the little Stuarts. Betty was his favourite; he was always ready
for a chat with her, but the others worried him.

Nurse was very thankful when she got herself and her little charges all
comfortably settled in the railway carriage for Tiverstoke the next
day. Sophy was not going with them, but the longing to be in the old
home again quite compensated nurse for the additional labour and
responsibility she would have.

The children had parted from their parents with great composure. Mrs.
Stuart had reiterated parting injunctions to nurse, and their father
had presented all five with a bright half-crown each, which gift
greatly added to their delight at going.

'Not much affection in children's hearts,' said Mr. Stuart to his wife,
as he watched the beaming faces gathered round the cab window to wave
'good-bye.'

'They will get through life the better for absence of sentiment and
demonstrativeness,' replied Mrs. Stuart; and perhaps those words were
an index to her character.

CHAPTER III

Was it an Angel?

It was a lovely afternoon in May, a week after the children's arrival
at Brook Farm. They were together in the orchard, which was a mass of
pink and white bloom. Bobby and Billy were having a see-saw on a low
apple branch; Douglas was perched on a higher bough of a cherry tree,
and the little girls were lying on the ground. Tongues were busy, as
usual.

'We've seen everything round the house,' Douglas was asserting in
rather a dictatorial tone; 'and now we must be busy having
adventures--people always do in the country.'

'What kind?' asked Molly meekly.

'They get tossed by