But it is not always, or even often, that wishes "come true," is it, children? Or if they do come true, it is in a different way; so different that they hardly seem the same. Like the little old woman in the ballad, who turned herself about and wondered and puzzled, but couldn't make out if she was herself or not, we stare at our fulfilled wishes and examine them on every side, but in their altered dress--_so_ different from, and, very seldom, if ever, as pretty as that which they wore in our imagination--we cannot believe that they are themselves! Do you remember the fancies that Carrots and Floss used to have about their cousin Sybil, and how they wished for her to come to see them? Well, about a fortnight after the affair of the lost half-sovereign, Sybil actually _did_ come to see them! She and her mamma. But it all happened quite differently from the way the children had planned it, so that just at first they could hardly believe it _was_ "a wish come true," though afterwards, when it was over, and they began to look back to it as a real thing instead of forwards to it as a fancy, they grew to think it had really turned out nicer than any of their fancies. You would like to hear all about it, I dare say. It took them all by surprise--this sudden visit of Sybil and her mother, I mean. There was no time for planning or arranging anything. There just came a telegram one afternoon, to say that Mrs. ----, no, I don't think I will tell you the name of Sybil's mother, I want you just to think of her as "auntie"--and her little girl would arrive at Sandyshore, late that same evening, "to stay one day," said the telegram, on their way to some other place, it does not matter where. It was several years since Captain Desart had seen his sister--that is, "auntie." He had been abroad at the time of her marriage, for she was a good many years younger than he, and since then, _she_ and her husband had been a great deal out of England. But now at last they were going to have a settled home, and though it was a good way from Sandyshore, still it was not like being in another country. "I am sorry Florence can only stay one day," said Mrs. Desart to her husband; "it seems hardly worth while for her to come so far out of her way for so short a time." "I am sorry too," said Captain Desart; "but a day's better than nothing." Floss and Carrots were sorry _too_--but what they were _most_ sorry for was not that Sybil and her mamma were only going to stay there one day, it was that they would not arrive till after the children's bedtime! So much after, that there could not even be a question of their "sitting up till they come." There was even a doubt of Cecil and Louise doing so, and Floss could not help feeling rather pleased at Mott's getting a decided snub from his father when he broached the subject on his own account. "Sit up till after ten o'clock--nonsense. Nobody wants you. Go to bed as usual, of course," said Captain Desart.