"Oh yes, they were. They are very nice stories indeed," said Floss, encouragingly. "And I'm very fond of what you call your mother's stories, too--aren't you, Carrots?--about the children she was nurse to--Master Hugh and Miss Janet. Tell us more about them, nursie." "You've heard all the stories about them, my dears, I'm afraid," said nurse. "At least, I can't just now think of any worth telling but what you've heard." "Well, let's hear some not worth the telling," said Floss, persistently. "Nurse," she went on, "how old must Master Hugh and Miss Janet be by now? Do you know where they are?" "Master Hugh is dead," said nurse, "many a year ago, poor fellow, and little Miss Janet--why she was fifteen years older than I; mother only left them to be married when Miss Janet was past twelve. She must be quite an old lady by now, if she is alive--with grandchildren as old as you, perhaps! How strange it seems!" "She must have been a very nice little girl, and so must Master Hugh have been--a nice little boy, I mean. That story of 'Mary Ann Jolly' was _so_ interesting. I suppose they _never_ did anything naughty?" said Floss, insinuatingly. "Oh, but they did," replied nurse, quite unsuspicious of the trap laid for her. "Master Hugh was very mischievous. Did I never tell you what they did to their dog Cæsar?" "No, never," said both the children in a breath; "do tell us." "Well, it was one Sunday morning, to tell it as mother told me," began nurse. "You know, my dears," she broke off again, "it was in Scotland, and rather an out-of-the-way part where they lived. I know the place well, of course, for it wasn't till I was seventeen past that I ever left it. It is a pretty place, out of the way even now, I'm told, with railways and all, and in those days it was even more out-of-the-way. Six miles from the church, and the prayers and the sermon very long when you got there! Many and many a time _I've_ fallen asleep at church, when I was a little girl. Well, to go back to Master Hugh and Miss Janet. It was on a Sunday morning they did the queer piece of mischief I'm going to tell you of. They had been left at home with no one but an old woman, who was too deaf to go to church, to look after them. She lived in the lodge close by, and used to come into the house to help when the servants were busy, for she was a very trusty old body. It was not often the children were left without mother, or perhaps one of the housemaids, to take care of them, and very often in fine weather they used to be taken to church themselves, though it was tiring like for such young things. But this Sunday, everybody had gone to church because it was the time of the preachings----" "The _what_, nurse?" said Floss. "Isn't there preaching every Sunday at church?"